Dante Benedetti

This interview was conducted in 1999 at the New Pisa Restaurant, which had been owned by the Benedetti family for over seventy years.

INTERVIEWER: When we chatted the other day, you jokingly mentioned something about the third floor of this building . . . what it was when you were a kid. Would you tell me now?

DANTE: Certainly. When I was a kid, the second floor -- the boarders slept up there. The third floor -- there was a Venetian fellow that ran the whole building, he owned it, it was called the Venetian Restaurant -- and the third floor, his wife was in charge; if you had a dollar and a half you went up and visited the girls. [Laugh]

INTERVIEWER: I see. So that was when you were ...

DANTE: Oh, I was ten, twelve years old. I just go by what I used to hear, you know. The ground floor was a restaurant, but the bar was closed off here [gesture], because in those days liquor was not allowed and there was bootleggin'. They had swinging doors on the alley there, where the bar is now. They had swinging doors that opened up and went into the alley. And they only allowed people they knew because it was bootleggin' days and you'd get arrested if you served liquor.

INTERVIEWER: So that's what is called a speakeasy? So the entrance to the speakeasy was on Jasper Alley and you had to knock on the door?

DANTE: Well, I don't remember how they used to let them in. I'm sure that there was some kind of signal, a bell or knock on a door [laugh].

INTERVIEWER: What kinds of people came to the speakeasy?

DANTE: All locals, North Beach. You had to be known. If they knew you they let you in. If they didn't know you you didn't get in. And the rest of this space was a restaurant. It was called the Venetian Restaurant. And then upstairs is where the boarders used to sleep. Then they used to come down and eat on the main floor. They were single men and they rented rooms and slept upstairs. The restaurant was open to the public too. Naturally the barroom was only opened to people they knew, They'd get arrested if they served the wrong person.

Of course, in all the restaurants you could have a little wine. You had to drink it in a coffee cup [laugh].

INTERVIEWER: So what happened? The police looked the other way?

DANTE: Well, I don't know. I can't give the secrets of the police away. But I'm sure that, well, even my dad, he took care of the police on the beat. He took care of the Pro-His, he took care of the whole cycle that was responsible for the area. The cop on the beat was the most important guy, he was the guy who took care of what was on his beat. My father, naturally, had access to what he could do and what he couldn't do.

INTERVIEWER : And when you say he took care of the cop on the beat, do you mean he paid him off?

DANTE: I don't know. Maybe he'd give him food, he could eat there. The cop on the beat. It was his beat. He could eat there.

© Jennifer Montgomery Dante Benedetti October 2000

© Jennifer Montgomery New Pisa Restaurant October 2000

Would you like to read this interview in its entirety, or any others from our collection? The full transcripts are available at the North Beach Branch of the San Francisco Public Library and at the San Francisco History Center, Main Branch. They are also available at the Bancroft Library at U.C. Berkeley. Or, if you are a member of the Telegraph Hill Dwellers, you are welcome to borrow any of the transcripts from our own Oral History Lending Library. Call Audrey Tomaselli at 391-1792.