Welcome to Swig City, where we point you toward don’t-miss cocktails at some of the best bars, restaurants and clubs in the city. Cheers!
Long an affordable, approachable place for entrees like five-layer Cadillac lasagna ($26) or a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs ($25), Emmy’s Spaghetti Shack has been an anchor tenant of one of the city’s low-key coolest blocks — Mission between Valencia and 29th streets — since 2001.
Now it’s becoming something even better: a late-night joint with a slew of excellent cocktails and an expanded nonalcoholic section. Emmy’s is still not technically a bar, but with cocktails like the Rasta Rasita — a $14 mezcal Negroni with hibiscus-forward Caribbean bitters — and a “reverse happy hour” on weekends from 9:30 p.m. to midnight, you can almost treat it like one.
One thing that won’t be changing, though, is the name. “This is Emmy’s,” says Michael Irish, a former bartender at the restaurant who took over this month from founder Emmy Kaplan, as Broke-Ass Stuart first reported. “This is the house that Emmy built.”
The best way to describe Irish’s $14 Piña Colada Old-Fashioned might be “fourth-dimensional.” Which is to say, as the ice melts, the drink transforms from a stiff, assertive old-fashioned into a sweet, coconut-y piña colada. It’s made from a “bunch of different rums,” along with Heirloom Pineapple Amaro, pressed coconut liqueur, and macadamia bitters.
The menu sets a limit of two PCOFs per customer. Is that because this hybrid beast is so boozy that no responsible restaurateur would permit anyone to throw back a third? Not quite. “It’s because the [coconut] ice is a hassle to make,” Irish says, before immediately hedging on the enforcement. “I break the rule if someone likes it, because this is the most unique drink I’ve made in a couple of years.”
This is the restaurant’s new ethos in its Irish era: Throw a lot of spaghetti at the wall. To that end, he’s adamant that if people come in one minute before closing time — 11:59 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, 9:59 on school nights — they will be welcomed like besties and never rushed. It’s a valiant goal. But also, really?
“The economics are really simple,” he reasons. “If you stay open, people will come. We will not be closing early, ever.”
Irish points to the success of his new “Monday Is for Lovers” deal as proof the gamble is paying off. A table for two can share two appetizers, one entree, one dessert, and a bottle of house wine — Emmy’s own label, from Sonoma County — for $60, tax included.
“It’s popping off right out the door,” he says of the date-night special. “Like, try to show me a better date in San Francisco.”
Emmy’s Spaghetti Shack
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- Emmy's Spaghetti Shack