The Balboa's Hostess Is More Than Meets The Eye
When it comes to telling stories, few can beat the vivacious Pat Kelley, who knows just about everyone in San Francisco.
"She's the exquisite Rolodex," says the legendary statesman Hadley Roff, who has worked for six San Francisco mayors and now consults for the Political Science and Urban Affairs departments at San Francisco State University. "Without Pat Kelley, the character of the Balboa
Café would be lost."
Over the years, columnists have quietly called Pat to ask her the "what's what" and the "who's who." It's a rare day when she doesn't have an answer. If she doesn't have an immediate answer, she'll graciously call back and rattle off a list of names and a constellation of characters that require a scorecard to follow. Fact is, Pat is one of the most fascinating of all San Franciscans on her own merits. Splashy and dazzling in her ingenue days, she takes her place among the local legends over the epochs, such as Alma Spreckels, Lillian Hitchcock Coit and Lola Montez.
She's played the part of courtesan and eminence grise. She gives the term "working girl" new meaning.
Yes, Pat was known to dance on the bar, martini glass in hand, until the cows came home. Her old friend, Herb Caen, would describe her as "the blond bombshell" or simply, "La Kelley." Sure, she could put away the martinis. But now, she's put them aside.
Today most people know Pat as the poised, graceful woman with the twinkling eyes and the elegant scarves who seats people for lunch at the Marina's storied Balboa Café -- a nexus for politicos, socialites, the shamelessly successful, and the rest of us. The current incarnation of the Balboa is part of the PlumpJack Group that was founded by Gavin Newsom. Among the investors are Gavin's childhood chum, Billy Getty, and various members of the Getty family. Gordon Getty is the patriach. At first glance, Pat appears to be a highborn lady who has a hostess gig in order to occupy her days and mingle with her well-heeled Pacific Heights friends.
That's not the case. Pat has made and lost fortunes without benefit of inheritance or husbands. She has always worked hard; was a "single mom" and a "career woman" -- before the terms were invented. In fact, she was the first female stockbroker in San Francisco and was one of the most successful real estate people in town. She achieved that through a combination of smarts, charm, and absolute fearlessness. She modestly calls it "naivete."
"I never really knew about the big picture," says Pat. "that I might have been ahead of the pack."
It was 1962. Tired of her meager wage at Allstate on the Peninsula and with a child, she went to the personnel manager to ask for more money. Pat was told she would not be able to go any higher in the company because she was a woman.
"When I asked about being a manager, a higher level, I was told that women weren't managers," Pat recalled. "The woman in personnel was stunned when I quit. I had no child support, and now, no job."
In Menlo Park, Pat approached a small investment firm run by Sheldon Luce, of the famous family. Again, she encountered a woman in personnel.
"Any college?" she asked.
"No."
"Can't use you."
Pat came back the next day.
"How much typing?"
"Not much."
"Can't use you."
Determined, Pat returned on Monday and asked to talk to Mr. Luce. "He hired me," Pat says, "for my persistence."
That persistence rarely left her. Luce gave her advice, such as, "Don't read other people's theories and never tell anyone what you do for a living."
Then one day, she said, "Mr. Luce, I was thinking over the weekend ..."
"Don't ever think," he shot back. "If I wanted someone to think, I would've hired a man. Maybe you should be a stockbroker." He gave her a list of names.
She landed a job at E.F. Hutton. They sent her to New York for training. There were 100 men and Pat Kelley in the room. Pat became the first female registered stock representative in San Francisco. In the first year, she was third best producer in the San Francisco office.
"All the other stockbrokers wanted to get through the day and go home," Pat recalled. "But I'd stay in the office until eight o'clock at night, picking up all the walk-in business."
These days, Pat gets to the PlumpJack Management office on Fillmore Street at six in the morning. There she handles all sorts of paperwork for the company. At 11:30, she crosses the street to the Balboa and begins her "mayter-dee" (as Herb Caen would say) duties until late afternoon.
"Pat was really the backbone of PlumpJack at its birth," Judge Bill Newsom, Gavin's dad, said the other day. "She had the breadth of experience that Gavin and Billy lacked -- in retail, in wine, and in food. She still is the public face of the PlumpJack enterprise."
Since her E.F Hutton days -- she was a broker for 12 years -- Pat says it has all been "a kaleidoscope." She made lots of friends, went to lots of places.
"In 1970, I met Herb Caen and Billy Gaylord (crown prince of interior design), " Pat says, "I always had interesting friends who are interested in people, people who are doers. Harry de Wildt (Caen dubbed him "Sir Lunch-a-lot") would give parties two nights in a row and sometimes not even show up."
She went along when real estate mogul Vincent Friia would take 25 people to Paris to celebrate New Year's with a midnight supper at Maxim's several years in a row.
There were the best of times and it seems they couldn't be better. She took her stock money and bought real estate, was at the vanguard of condo-conversion, went into the wine store business -- she called the shops Crane & Kelley --and a hardware store at Polk & Pacific.
"I always wanted to own something that was somewhere between the Crystal Palace and Harrod's," she says. "So I created the Oakville Grocery with Joe Phelps (of winery fame). With that, another Crane & Kelley, and La Cuisine, a cooking school that included instructors such as Marion Cunningham, Carlo Middione, Marcella Hazan, Giancarlo Bugialli, Flo Braker, and Jeremiah Tower.
Pat and Jeremiah became an item. On a trip to Honolulu, they actually discussed marriage. Kelley recalls those days: "Jeremiah was going through -- how shall I say? -- an ambivalent stage. Back at the Balboa, I finally said, 'Jeremiah, I've been thinking. I really don't think we should get married.' He sighed and blurted out, 'Thank God!' in relief."
Tower, who lives in Merîda, Mexico, in the Yucatan, is now writing and consulting. He recalls cooking for Pat's dinner parties on Russian Hill and in Napa in the old days:
Pat was the first high-flying member of some part of San Francisco's society to invite me to sit down to dinner at her table afer I had cooked the dinner, even when other people at the table, some of those flying in that town's highest circles were appalled to sit next to a cook. Later, of course, with my local fame as a superstar and chef, some from society wanted to sit next to me."
Pat says the Oakville Grocery was her dream come true.
"And it didn't even have parking." Her eyes sparkle as she speaks. "We had the best produce in town. We sold 100 kinds of mustard. Cyril Magnin came in every day. Then the union struck us over a dispute that was about our using novices. Genteel ladies did not like crossing a picket line and being called names like 'scumbag' by nasty people. It took them 18 months to put us out of business."
The real estate business also went south.
"I'm still not sure what happened, but I spent five years as a defendant, and wound up without a dime."
She went to work for Cliff Abbey, the St. Helena vintner, who then owned the Trattoria Contadina in North Beach.
Says Pat, "This was my college experience when it came to the restaurant business, from washing pots and pans to all the rest." Pat confesses she actually switched the place cards at a dinner so Cliff could sit next to her friend, Clare Boothe Luce, granddaughter of the famous playwright and congresswoman. Clare and Cliff, now married, "haven't been out of each other's sight since that night."
Yes, Clare is from the same family as Sheldon Luce, who gave Pat her a break in the finance world all those years ago.
She opened the Dixie Café for Tom Clendenning and opened Rosalie's on Van Ness Avenue. It closed. She reopened it as Rosalie's Redux with Harry de Wildt. It closed. "I think Harry accidentally wandered into the kitchen and recoiled at the sight of the butcher in a bloody smock. It was all over."
Pat went back to work for Cliff Abbey, producing jeans on Potrero Hill.
One day, Pat and Gavin had a chat at the Balboa about opening a wine store in the Marina. What would they call it? Gordon Getty had composed an opera called "Plump Jack." Pat thought it might be a good name for the shop, considering the Gettys were involved. After a protracted battle with some neighbors who didn't want another wine shop in the area, PlumpJack Wines finally opened.
Kelley retains undying respect and loyalty for Mayor Newsom. The feeling is mutual.
"Gavin is awfully smart, a self-taught businessman," Pat says. "He exudes honesty and loyalty. In turn, he expects commitment. We made it with pluck and hard work -- not always knowing what we were doing.
Sure, we had advantages -- people wanted to see what the Gettys were doing. I was perfectly happy. Two years into the wine store, I hear from Gavin, 'We're going to buy the Pixie Café. I need a challenge."
That became the PlumpJack Cafe on Fillmore.
Meanwhile, Jack Slick and his partners, Cathe and Doyle Moon, were running the Balboa Café, which had been a funky neighborhood bar in the old days, frequented by sodden merchant sailors. Jack, Cathe and Doyle took it over and it became a very hip spot. Boz Scaggs, a friend of Slick's, was among many musicians often seen at the Balboa. Yes, Pat worked for Jack at one time, too. (Slick now owns a bar in Sacramento.) The Jack Slick days became quite notorious for his bizarre, rambunctious behavior. Herb Caen reported the time Slick dragged a man out of the bathroom with his pants down, holding a syringe. Slick screamed, "I don't want any junkies in my bathroom!"
The man was a diabetic. The syringe contained insulin. The restaurant paid the man a $600,000 settlement. It was another blow to a foundering ship. Kelley suggested to Gavin that the PlumpJack people pick up the Balboa, that it could be as great as it used to be. They got it for a song.
Pat's not comfortable with the moniker of "kingmaker" but she's undoubtedly and relentlessly imaginative. One fateful night at the PlumpJack Cafe, Pat Kelley introduced then-Mayor Willie Brown to Gavin. Later, Pat nudged Willie with the notion of appointing Gavin to a commission. "After all," Pat said, "You gave Billy Getty a commission."
Mayor Brown appointed Gavin to the Parking and Traffic Commission. The rest is political history. Gavin was later appointed supervisor in District 2. Then he was elected to the office. When Newsom was elected mayor, he had to relinquish his PlumpJack holdings in San Francisco.
Today Pat has a 28-year old son, Kevin, a real estate agent at Sotheby's. Her daughter, Kathleen, 44, is married with three boys.
What's left for Pat Kelley to conquer? She might conquer the English lexicon. She has passion for words. A dictionary remains open on the counter in the kitchen of her cozy Marina apartment. "I try to learn a new word every day. Aside from that, "I'd like to go another NCAA tournament. I'd like to meet Frederick Larsen (the Chronicle photographer); I want to have lunch with Lance Armstrong and Wayne Gretsky. I've met Domingo, Pavorotti and Joan Sutherland. Who's left?
I'd like to get backstage and meet Donald Fagen when he comes the Paramount in Oakland on March 28th. There are so many challenges and wonderful things yet to do."
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