Fifty-five years on Castro Street

It started as a Scandinavian deli

The Cove opened in June 1971 as The Norse Cove — a deli the Darwish family bought from a Norwegian mother and her two daughters. New to the country and not wanting to change a thing, they kept the name, the deli case, and the big community table where strangers ate elbow to elbow. A sandwich was $1.25, a salad thirty-five cents, and you paid on the honor system on your way out.

A neighborhood, and a name, that grew

As the Castro became home to a growing gay community from across the country and the world, regulars shortened the name to “The Cove.” In 1988 it became The Cove Café and moved to table service — the way it still runs today. In 2004, Solange and Maurice Darwish took full ownership and gave it the name it carries now: The Cove on Castro.

A 1909 Victorian with the best seats in the house

The Cove has always sat directly across from the Castro Theatre, the 1922 movie palace that became San Francisco Historic Landmark #100. Our own building is a Victorian from 1909, with a recessed doorway and two bay windows that hold the best people-watching seats around. The tiled walkway to the door has been there since the building went up.

Harvey Milk, Cleve Jones, and a lot of regulars

Through the seventies and eighties, The Cove was a meeting ground for the neighborhood and the activists shaping it — Harvey Milk was a regular when his camera store was down the block, and Cleve Jones, who conceived the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, still comes in. Over the decades, writers, actors and musicians have pulled up a chair too, Robin Williams and Santana among them. But the faces that matter most here have always belonged to the regulars.

Made from scratch, the way it always has been

The food hasn't chased trends. Meatloaf, roasted turkey, chicken fried steak, a chicken soup and a couple of vegan soups every day — with handmade soups and breads prepared fresh each day. Our head chef has been in this kitchen more than thirty years. On weekends there are four kinds of Eggs Benedict and a Hollandaise people drive across town for.