If you are not feeling well please STAY HOME and order delivery. “When the Original U.S. Restaurant closed down, it hit many of us who as kids grew up or hung out in North Beach,” said Alioto, a first-time restaurateur and a longtime customer of both the restaurant and Cipollina. “U.S. was part of our childhood. We all went there. There was a feeling in the community that it was part of our history. … It’s the neighborhood’s kitchen.”
Contrary to popular belief, Original U.S. Restaurant is not named after the United States; the abbreviation stands for “Unione Sportiva” — a reference to the restaurant’s role in feeding and hosting the city’s Italian American athletic clubs in the late 19th century. Cipollina married in to the restaurant, so to speak. His wife, Anna, who passed away this year, and her family owned the Original U.S. Restaurant for much of the second half of the 20th century. Anna waited tables; Alberto helped out in the kitchen and eventually took on a larger role. The restaurant became a neighborhood gathering place for families like Alioto’s; he compared it with “going to your grandma’s house on Sunday.”
“Everybody always loved U.S. Restaurant,” Cipollina said. “We didn’t cater to tourists. We catered to locals. That’s why they still love us.”
