If you are the owners of Foreign Cinema, how do you ever top your restaurant’s hedonistic first party in 1999, which included a helicopter attempting to drop a statue of Christ into the courtyard, à la Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita”?

Though chef-owners Gayle Pirie and John Clark didn’t take over the Mission restaurant until two years into its life, they inherited the legend of its outrageous opening night. “Apparently, the first helicopter pilot was on board to do it, but there was a pilot change at the last minute. And that pilot, after trying it, said no,” Pirie told me. “It just goes to show you what the city of San Francisco was like in those rogue days of 1999. The Fire Department signed off on it, the city signed off on it, but the chopper pilot said, ‘No fucking way.’”

As a nascent food writer in my 20s, I was lucky enough to be at that opening 25 years ago. Back then, when the Mission had yet to emerge as the city’s hippest neighborhood, Foreign Cinema, appearing seemingly overnight amid Mission Street’s bodegas, was truly thrilling. I remember walking through the signature unmarked porthole door, down a long corridor, and there it was: a soaring, dreamy, industrial space, complete with a courtyard, concrete walls, high ceilings, and a massive fireplace. It felt at once urban and gritty, romantic and elegant. 

There was food at the opening party, I’m sure, but what I recall were the marching band, the topless dancers in the balconies, and, on the roof, the flag spinners and fire eaters. (Proof of it still lives on YouTube.) And, of course, the helicopter, which we breathlessly watched rise just above the roof, Jesus swinging from his rope, then dip, rise again, and finally abort. It was as if Burning Man had been relocated to a restaurant, complete with 35 mm films projected on a wall, cocktails, and hors d’oeuvres. If this was any indication of my future career, I thought, I had arrived. It says something that I’ve never attended a restaurant party quite like it since.

This isn’t to say that Clark and Pirie haven’t done their damnedest to beat it, throwing charity blowouts for many of the restaurant’s birthdays. A week before Foreign Cinema’s 25th anniversary on Thursday, Clark, Pirie, and I sat in a booth at their adjacent bar, Laszlo. The couple identifies as curators of the arts, and as artists themselves. They definitely know how to spark joy. Clark, a collector of vintage cars, looks the part: His forearm is stacked with a jangle of silver-and-turquoise bracelets, and there’s a red bandanna around his neck. Pirie’s presents more casual, with a smidge of Berkeley, where they live with their older kids. 

They told me about some of the plans they’d hatched for the 25th anniversary bash: It’ll be Moulin Rouge-themed, with berets, mimes, and much more. Peering at me through his small, square, gold-tinted glasses, Clark thought for a moment. “My sense is to always do something slightly offensive — but not so offensive as to alienate people. Something just shocking enough.”

For instance, maybe a guy dressed as a cowboy, who — while bouncing up and down on a carousel-horse pogo stick — has the core strength to strip down to a pink thong followed by an explosion of glitter. Or something with a live camel or a herd of sheep. A “quixotic quinceañera” with a drag show? A tarot reader. A henna artist. Definitely an aerial silks artist in a sparkly bodysuit dangling from the dining-room ceiling, twisting herself into compromising positions, her foot just grazing the head of a handsome server passing out puff-pastry-encased escargot to patrons dressed as Napoleon.

I felt like I could imagine their brainstorming meetings. Everything got a yes.

These are just some of Clark and Pirie’s realized dreams, brought to life by the cadre of local groups like Velocity Arts who have helped them throw some of the city’s most over-the-top benefits, raising almost $700,000 for charities like the Edible Schoolyard Project and this year’s beneficiary, Hamilton Families.

While the first party set the tone for extravagance, Pirie and Clark in 2001 inherited a restaurant with problems. “When we arrived, it had tremendous debts,” Pirie said. “So we paid off every vendor. We got through the first dot-com bust and then 9/11. Then we started to have some good years.”

By their fifth anniversary, in 2004, the couple were ready to celebrate. “I was thinking about Chez Panisse and how the cafe had a birthday every year,” said Pirie. “I remember saying, ‘We have to throw ourselves a party.’ We wanted to replicate the first one.” So they had Bollywood dancers in full regalia, plus more topless models who gained a fan when actor Peter Coyote showed up, and, as Pirie recalled, “showed his enthusiasm by following them around like a puppy dog.” That was also the year the Modernism West Gallery opened within the restaurant, solidifying their connection to the arts.

Since then, Pirie and Clark have tried just about everything. Their ninth birthday party was skateboard-themed, with artists auctioning painted decks and Adam Theis playing the trumpet while skateboarding through the restaurant, the entire Jazz Mafia parading behind him. Their 12th was rock-themed, benefitting Little Kids Rock (now Music Will), with Green Day and Lady Antebellum auctioning off their instruments. 

There was a Moroccan night with a guest camel. “I didn’t realize camels are so tall,” said Pirie, who initially envisioned the beast parading through the crowd. “He ended up in a corner being petted by the guests.” In 2019, right before the pandemic hit, they threw their 20th anniversary party, complete with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and — why not? — a few real nuns. “John built a confessional by hand, and there was a whipping station, which was a big hit,” Pirie said.

This brings us to the 25th anniversary party, which I attended as one of the few guests who could say they were there at the beginning. With the Baz Luhrmann theme, the night’s program read like a Cirque du Soleil stream of consciousness: a five-piece French band, mime, pole dancing, cancan, showgirls, cabaret, aerialists, contortionists.

Women decked out in feather boas and headdresses lined the entry corridor. Like all of Clark and Pirie’s parties, it is a statement of not just debauchery but generosity. Guests, many dressed to the nines, were served squares of creamy-crispy chickpea panisse. One table brimmed with vegetables and aioli, another a boatload of gorgeous cheese and pounds of butter. There was a raw bar with oysters, clams, and even uni being scooped out of its spiny shell and, for dessert, a towering croquembouche. The open bar served up martinis and boulevardiers. Massive bouquets of marigolds towered over everything.

Absinthe shots were handed out by a guy dressed as a butterfly. A totally normal-looking middle-age woman was sitting at a table, idly holding a balloon fashioned into a penis. And yes, there was the sweaty stripper on the pogo stick.

Political figures like state Sen. Scott Wiener and Phil Ting paid their respects. On behalf of Mayor London Breed, who showed up late, Pirie and Clark were presented with a certificate designating Sept. 26 “Foreign Cinema Day.” “This restaurant is about the soul of San Francisco,” declared Breed’s representative.

And, truly, it is.