On September 12th, San Francisco’s oldest barbecue joint, Memphis Minnie's, will celebrate 15 years on Haight Street. In honor of the occasion, Hoodline sat down with owner Gail Wilson (the widow of founder Bob Kantor) and general manager Tom Campbell to talk about continuing the tradition Bob started in the Lower Haight back in 2000.
Gail Wilson, on a recent trip back to the Bay Area to check in on Memphis Minnie's. (Photo: Diane Zimmer/Hoodline)
Gail currently resides in Asheville, North Carolina, to which she and Bob semi-retired in 2010, returning every few months to oversee the restaurant. The couple met in San Francisco in 1997, through personal ads they had both placed in the Bay Guardian. After an initial date, each thought the other was nice, but wasn't convinced there was a romantic attraction. However, after running their ads for a few more weeks and meeting “horrible” people, the couple decided it might work after all.
After 13 years together, Gail and Bob decided to make it “official” with a huge 2010 surprise wedding at the Log Cabin in the Presidio. Aside from a few family members they knew wouldn’t fly cross-country otherwise, guests had no idea of the party's purpose until Gail and Bob walked down a makeshift aisle and introduced the officiant who was to marry them.
Bob had already begun his foray into barbecue when he met Gail, having opened the original Memphis Minnie's in 1992, in a factory warehouse at 20th and York in the Mission. (It's named for his mother, Minnie, who indeed hailed from Memphis, Tennessee.) When that building was converted into living space, he relocated, opening a second version inside Johnny Love's at Polk and Broadway. After Johnny Love's lost its lease, Bob spent a few years catering and consulting while he looked for the perfect location. He found it in the Lower Haight.
“Bob and I traveled all throughout the South, visiting these old places people had been [barbecuing] forever," says Gail. "People would ask Bob, "Are you from the South? He would answer, 'Of course I am! South Brooklyn! Imagine a Jewish guy from Brooklyn selling pork for a living!'”
Sadly, Bob passed away in December 2013, after suffering a heart attack while scuba diving with Gail in the Caribbean. In the wake of his death, Gail says she doesn’t know how she would have managed without Campbell and his wife, Jacki Butterfield. Bob’s son, Ben Kantor, is also a part-owner; he lives in Brooklyn, where he works in the mayor's office.
Tom Campbell and Jacki Butterfield. (Photo: Diane Zimmer/Hoodline)
Tom Campbell has worked on and off at Memphis Minnie's since just after its opening, in 2002. After a short initial stint at the restaurant, he and Jacki spent a little more than a year in Las Vegas, working in casino restaurants. The couple briefly returned to San Francisco, where Tom took over as Memphis Minnie's general manager, then left again for Tom’s hometown of Baltimore, where he spent five years running his own catering company.
As luck would have it, Bob and Tom reconnected in 2012, when Tom and Jacki were looking to return to the West Coast and Bob needed a new general manager. Tom has been running the day-to-day operations of Minnie's ever since.
Tom says one of the biggest changes over the years has been the rise of delivery services, including Caviar and GrubHub. Fewer customers eat in the restaurant these days; approximately 30 percent of orders are delivery, and another 30 percent are catering.
The remaining customers consist largely of regulars from the neighborhood and foreign tourists. Just last week, the restaurant was closed for a large catering event when two people came to the gate, saying they had come all the way from Ireland and that every time they came to the Bay Area, Minnie's was their first stop. Of course, Tom ensured they didn't go away without some barbecue.
In response to changing tastes, the restaurant revamped its menu last February, offering dishes mainly a la carte. Customers had frequently been requesting only one side, or more sides than were offered, or a different portion size; as a result, the menu is now much more customizable, so diners can get as little or as much food as they want. A few other small changes included adding daily specials and offering smoked fried chicken all weekend. So far, it’s had a fairly good reception, Tom says.
On Saturday, September 12th, in conjunction with the Haight Street Art Walk, Memphis Minnie's will celebrate its 15th birthday in the Lower Haight with deep-fried prime rib, bacon-wrapped corn dogs, and beer and sake specials. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Lower Haight Merchants and Neighbors Association's campaign to install hanging sphere lights.
DSF has reproduced the original Memphis Minnie's T-shirt, which will be available for sale. Graffiti artist Joker will be producing a mural on the front of Memphis Minnie's, as well as offering an interactive space for anyone who would like to participate in learning the art of spray-paint graffiti.
Bob Kantor. (Photo: Andrew Dudley/Hoodline)
Tom says he misses Bob greatly, and hopes to maintain his legacy in the neighborhood. “Bob was my mentor, my West Coast father figure. I learned a lot from him. When he first called to come back from Vegas and be his GM, Bob saw something in me that I didn’t necessarily see in myself. I hope that I can keep [the restaurant] going. I loved to fight with him; I wish that I could still keep that going. There’s a lot of things only he has the answer to—he maintained the smoker himself. When I need to repair it, I just wish I could call him up, because there’s no repair manual, just him.”
