Caffe Trieste

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Caffé Trieste is a chain of five Italian-themed coffeehouse plus one retail store in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.

The cafe was founded in 1956 by Giovanni Giotta (or "Papa Gianni" as he came to be known), who hailed from the small fishing town of Rovigno, Italy (now part of Croatia). Giotta immigrated with his family to America in the early 1950s, settling in San Francisco. Remembering the espresso houses of Trieste, Italy, Giotta opened Caffe Trieste—said to be the first espresso house on the west coast.

The first location, which still survives, is in San Francisco's North Beach. It quickly became popular among the neighborhood's primarily Italian residents. "It was all Italian people," Giotta said, "But I got the American people to like cappuccino." [1]

The cafe also became popular among the many young Beat writers and artists who lived in North Beach in the 1950s and 1960s. The caffe was meeting-place for Jack Kerouac, Bob Kaufman, Gregory Corso, Michael McClure and Kenneth Rexroth, among others. [2] It was featured in several movies, and was where Francis Ford Coppola wrote much of the screenplay for The Godfather. It remains a favorite destination for writers, artists, hipsters, neighborhood residents and tourists.

Caffe Trieste opened a Sausalito branch in 1982. Since 2003, the caffe has become a chain, with a branch in Berkeley and two more in San Francisco, one on Market Street (at Gough) and one on New Montgomery Street (at Howard).

Caffe Trieste celebrated its 50th anniversary in April, 2006. [3]

[edit] References

  1. ^ "50 Years of Art and Coffee" by Cecilia M. Vega, San Francisco Chronicle, April 1, 2006 [1]
  2. ^ Mick Sinclair, San Francisco: A Cultural and Literary History (Signal Books, 2004), page 176
  3. ^ "50 Years of Art and Coffee"

[edit] External links

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