Star Restaurateur's Slow Takeover of a Legendary Bar
For two years, the sandwich shop next door to the House of Shields was a lookout and staging ground
Dennis Leary’s takeover of the House of Shields, one of San Francisco’s coolest old bars, was as artful as a classic cocktail — stirred by hand, and ever so slowly.
Leary, the owner of three downtown restaurants — including Canteen and Golden West — coveted the historic House of Shields at 39 New Montgomery St., but lacked the money to buy it outright.
Built in 1908, the bar was named after its founder, Eddie Shields, who is thought to have been “an associate in the boxing world,” said James F. Jarvis, a local historian of the city’s drinking establishments.
The idea of having the bar also appealed to Leary’s Luddite nature. “Everyone has friends on Facebook,” Leary said, “but a bar is one of the last places people converse face to face.”
In 2008, the sandwich shop next to the House of Shields became available. Leary had learned that the bar’s lease was up in 2010, so he rented the shop to serve as his lookout where he could become acquainted with the owners of the entire building, the Sharon Building. He named his new restaurant the Sentinel.
Leary has been interested in old properties since his teenage years, when he washed dishes at the Parker House Hotel in Boston where the classic rolls were created and Malcolm X worked as a busboy.
When he opened the Sentinel in May 2008, Leary took care to restore the establishment, applying a lot of elbow grease and uncovering old cigar signs and other original details.
Brad Bernheim, vice president of Coast Counties Property Management, whose family has owned the Chicago-style Sharon Building for generations, was impressed by Leary’s efforts — so impressed that in May 2009, the management company awarded him first right of refusal on the lease for the House of Shields.
“We had a lot of interest in Shields,” Bernheim said. “But Dennis’ track record shows he does what he says he’s going to do, and he does it right.”
The lease expired June 30; Leary took over and immediately closed the bar for renovations. It reopened in December with reupholstered booths and hand-blown glass sconces.
Bernheim turned down several offers to lease the House of Shields, including one from H. Joseph Ehrmann, owner of the Elixir saloon in the Mission district and a founder of the Barbary Coast Conservancy of the American Cocktail.
Although disappointed not to get the lease, Ehrmann was supportive of Leary and put him in touch with Thomas Nolan, son of one of the early owners of the House of Shields, who gave the new House of Shields proprietor a jar of the family eggnog. Today the recipe sits on Leary’s desk; he may add it to a bar menu later this year.
Meanwhile, the House of Shields is well situated to benefit from the increase in foot traffic projected to arrive with the new Transbay Transit Center, scheduled to open nearby in 2017. All Leary has to do is wait.
This article also appears in the Bay Area edition of The New York Times.
Carole McLaughlin
I assume that the moose head over the bar has been fumigated