In an era of relentless texts about voting and partisan bickering on social media, an old-school and politically impartial tradition persists at one of San Francisco’s oldest restaurants: Willie Brown’s Election Day free lunch.
John’s Grill, the 115-year-old downtown institution, will again host scores of local candidates, staffers, public figures, and anyone else looking for a free bite to eat on Tuesday. It’s a rare moment of civility amid an otherwise contentious campaign season, where political figures from across ideological lines break bread before the votes are counted.
“It’s going to be enormous because of the presidential election — it’s not just the mayor’s race, it’s everything,” said Joe Cotchett, a prominent Bay Area attorney helping to underwrite this year’s event. “You’ll probably have every single person running for mayor, supervisor, assembly, state Senate, whatever.”
“It’s going to be a very civil, very democratic” event, Cotchett said. “We’re going to have Republicans, Democrats, you name it, independents — everybody is welcome, regardless of party.”
Brown, the former San Francisco mayor and state Assembly speaker, will occupy his traditional post, holding court at John’s entrance to greet attendees.
“I think it’s just a great party,” Brown told The Standard. “For me, I stand there for two and a half or three hours, shaking hands and taking pictures. You have to come by me to get in.”
This year, the complimentary lunch and wine will be served from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at John’s. The tradition dates to the 1980s, when the buffet was held at the now-defunct Allegro restaurant in Russian Hill, according to political consultant Alex Clemens, who first attended as a “baby political aide” in 1989.
“You showed up at Allegro and there were trays of food set out. You made yourself a plate and grabbed a glass of wine,” Clemens said. “Most of the people there had woken up at 5 a.m. and had been doing get-out-the-vote work since dark hours.”
Brown recalled how the event has evolved from “just cheap wine and spaghetti and salad, and that was it” in its early days to become a marquee gathering of San Francisco’s political class.
“Then we graduated to the best we’ve been able to do: John’s Grill, 63 Ellis St., is just so much better than anything we’ve had in the past,” he said.
John’s Grill is practically a de facto office for Brown, who held an impromptu press conference there this July when President Biden announced he would not run for reelection.
In the three-month stretch since Kamala Harris became the Democrats’ replacement candidate, Brown says he’s been making calls, knocking on doors, and retail campaigning: “I do that regularly. It’s my profession, frankly, and I had a lot of fun doing it.”
The event, which has been held following a hiatus at John’s since 2015, has helped cement the restaurant’s status as a rare neutral territory in the city’s often fractious political landscape.
“Where else would be more traditional than a place that’s been there since 1908?” John’s Grill co-owner John Konstin said.
The lunch provides a stark contrast to the increasingly bitter tone of national politics, several participants noted. Campaign workers who began their day at dawn doing get-out-the-vote work can refuel while mingling with opponents in what Clemens called a “great opportunity to celebrate the people who go out and get the work done.”
“Everybody who attends has the same overall goal of building the best possible San Francisco, even though they may have different ideas about how best to get there,” Clemens said.
Clemens noted that San Francisco’s “extraordinarily tough political culture” has produced national leaders, including Vice President Kamala Harris, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Gov. Gavin Newsom, and the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
While the gathering occurs during a heated mayoral race, Cotchett joked about the unlikely prospect of certain interactions: “I want to see London Breed sit down with [challenger Mark] Farrell and have a drink together. I don’t think I’ll see that, but I’m saying that in a joking fashion.”