Ernie's

Ernie's was a renowned restaurant in San Francisco, California, for many years. First opened as a modest family-style Italian trattoria around the turn of the 20th century and located near what was the notorious Barbary Coast area of the city, in the 1950s it became world famous as a luxurious restaurant serving mostly traditional French cuisine in what was usually called Victorian or fin-de-siècle bordello-like decor featuring plush red wallpaper, heavy draperies, impeccable white linens, and formal waiters in black tuxedos. When it closed in 1995, it had been one of the few remaining restaurants of a kind that had once epitomized the celebrated San Francisco dining scene; among the others, some of them even older, were the Ritz Old Poodle Dog, Jack's, The Blue Fox, and Amelio's. All of them are now gone and only a few vestiges of the 19th century still remain in San Francisco: Tadich Grill, Sam's, and John's; none of these, however, ever enjoyed the reputation for decadent, even illicit, pleasures that the others purveyed.