The Wharf without Alioto’s

A couple of posts ago, I wrote about the imminent demise of the Vaillancourt Fountain. The fountain doesn’t look like it’s going to “go gently into that good night” with the sculptor fighting it each step of the way. He may or may not be successful, but nothing’s going to save Alioto’s Restaurant. It will be demolished soon, and last week’s SF Chronicle has a artist’s rendition of what the spot may look like soon. I’ll have a harder time letting go of Alioto’s than the Vaillancourt Fountain. This little stretch of Taylor Street, north of Jefferson, has always been one of my favorite spots in San Francisco going all the way back to it being one of the area’s of San Francisco used in the the Disneyland Circlevision attraction ‘America the Beautiful’ in Tomorrowland. I looked back over my blog to some of the times I visited Alioto’s Restaurant in a post. (Thumbnail images)

  

The bottom photo is a view of the Fisherman’s Wharf Lagoon from my table upstairs on a birthday lunch in 2016. The top photo is a vintage picture from SF Gate, looking back toward where I was sitting before Alioto’s was remodeled.

  

A cartoon view of Aliotos’s from the children’s classic ‘This is San Francisco’ by Miroslav Sasek:

  

Steve Keller (Michael Douglas) is assigned to be a bodyguard to a call girl played by Janice Rule who has been targeted for murder by one of her “clients” in an episode of ‘The Streets of San Francisco’ TV show. Keller is cold and distant toward her at first, but eventually develops affection for her. Here they pass the Fisherman’s Wharf Boat Lagoon with Alioto’s and #9 Fishermen’s Grotto Restaurants behind them.

  

This little stretch of outdoor seafood shops in front of Alioto’s from the 1930’s was from a vintage picture on the wall of the stairs leading up to Alioto’s Restaurant.

  

Another undated vintage picture on the wall of Alioto’s looking back across Fisherman’s Wharf Lagoon.

  

A twilight picture looking back toward Pier 43 from upstairs Alioto’s: The vintage picture is a 1975 photo by Peter Stratmoen

  

A 1938 shot of where Alioto’s would eventually evolve from in a photo from the UC Berkeley Library Archives: Alioto’s was closed by September of 2023 when Applebee’s Restaurant kindly let me get a comparison picture from their window.

  

However, my all-time favorite picture of Alioto’s Restaurant will always be at twilight from an old 1950s souvenir book.