The shuttered San Francisco restaurant that became the blueprint for “Bob’s Burgers” is firing up the grill again.
Earlier this April, Dogpatch mainstay Just For You Cafe closed after more than 40 years in operation, with owner Reid Hannula citing mounting debt incurred during the pandemic, rising inflation rates and other challenges related to the building the popular breakfast joint was housed in. Regulars were devastated, and in the eatery’s final days, throngs of people showed up to purchase all of its remaining T-shirts and sweatshirts and were “buying beignets off the street,” Hannula said at the time.
But another restaurateur has stepped in and plans to reopen the space later this August: Mike Tufo, the owner of Excelsior deli Calabria Brothers.
“The motivation was pretty simple,” Tufo said over the phone Tuesday afternoon. “I loved the place. I had a lot of friends who were tied to it. We used to go there before Giants games. It was always packed. A good friend of mine had an in on it, and basically, it was kind of luck. We talked to the landlord and moved on from there.”
The restaurant will now be called Giuliana’s Just For You Cafe, named after Tufo’s daughter. Though customers may notice several new renovations, he said the layout of the cafe will stay the same, and he hopes to hire back some of the former staff. Most of the menu will be preserved, too, with the addition of deli sandwiches that are expected to have their own separate menu in the near future. Tufo plans to focus on breakfast classics — eggs, bacon, pancakes and, of course, those famous fluffy beignets — but some of Just For You’s other Southern fare, like fried catfish and Creole crab cakes, will no longer be available.
“They weren’t big sellers so we had to let them go,” Tufo said. “We’re going to keep it very simple and very good.”
The exterior of Just For You Cafe.
Thelma H./YelpIn May 2022, “Bob’s Burgers” creator Loren Bouchard said that while he was developing the show with writer Nora Smith in San Francisco’s Mission District, they tapped local artists Jay Howell and Sirron Norris to bring the Belcher family and the fictional Seymour’s Bay to life. In the meantime, Bouchard was taking pictures of restaurants all over the city, trying to find the one that would serve as the point of inspiration for the titular burger joint.
Nothing resonated with him — that is, until he stepped inside Just For You Cafe and saw the pass-through between the kitchen and the front counter where customers place their orders.
“You can basically see it as its own little stage,” Bouchard said at the time, likening it to “a children’s puppet theater.” He asked Norris to draw an interior modeled after Just For You so they could stage scenes in which Bob could banter with his family while at the grill.
When Just For You closed earlier this year, a former employee took the marlin adorning the back wall of the cafe home with them. The “outside protein” appeared in Norris’ original sketches, but never made it to the show. However, it was such a staple of Just For You that the owner of Reno’s Liquor next door bought Tufo a new one to display over the front window.
Tufo said he “had no idea” about Just For You’s ties to the award-winning television series, but in the spirit of the Belcher family, his goal is keeping the restaurant alive in spite of any setbacks encountered along the way.
“To get it open has been kind of a challenge, so we’re working hard to get there,” he said. “We had to reapply for everything.”
The cafe just got the green light from the Department of Public Health last Friday, Tufo said, and he’s now in the process of obtaining a seller’s permit as well as a beer and wine license.
“I’m just doing this for the neighborhood,” Tufo said. “They wanted something similar to come back and were bummed out when it closed. This is for the city. I know it was a good place and I’m hoping it succeeds.”