FRANK SPENGER
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Grotto's Longtime Patrons Have
Fond Memories

NEWS OF PENDING CLOSURE BRINGS CROWDS BACK TO SPENGER'S

By James Carter

BERKELEY VOICE
Thursday, September 10, 1998
 


Frank "Bud" Spenger, Jr. and his wife Milly, watched a football game last Sunday in a cocktail lounge Bud designed years ago. The ceiling above was covered with corks gathered from old fishing nets -- chestnut colored rings pitted from years of trolling the waters of the Sacramento River. It is one part of a decor that can be found nowhere but at Spenger's Fish Grotto, treasures accumulated by the century-old business.

Beyond the bar there is a busy dining room walled with planks from schooners that once sailed the seas -- walls adorned with trophy fish, some of which, it is said, no longer inhabit the ocean.  Just beyond the dining room is a fish market where customers stand in line to purchase red snapper and baas, scallop and oysters.  The market is so popular that many people come from as far away as San Jose to buy quarts of clam chowder, deviled crab and poached salmon.  Yet, few know that this location is where, in 1890, Bavarian immigrant Johann Spenger built a house.

According to Johann's grandson Bud, "Grandpa came here in 1865 and worked as a fisherman on the Day. He came here to Berkeley and built the pointed house you can see from the front.  Well, that's his home.

"On the northside, he had a little lean-to where my father, who was a commercial fisherman, would leave a lot of fish for Grandpa. And he had a little kind of shelf-like deal there and he sold fish to the public. He had a sign out front with a stick and a piece of newspaper. And when the newspaper was dangling in the westerly wind, we had fish, and the people would come down and he'd wrap it up in newspaper and sell it. That's how he started the business."
 

Crowds return, reminisce

From that humble beginning the institution known as Spenger's Fish Grotto became, for many years, one of the nation's top grossing restaurants.  Patronage of Berkeley's oldest restaurant began to decline in the late '80s. But when news circulated this year that Spenger's was scheduled to close Sept. 30, flocks of people returned. In fact Bob Schafer, a union bartender who has poured drinks at the Spenger's bar for 25 years, said the last month or so has been "like when I started working here. It's been screaming."

On the weekends there are long lines of people waiting their turn to be seated at the restaurant many thought would always be part of their lives.  Take Phil Dodd for instance: he began dining at Spenger's while in the Navy in 1944. After his discharge in October of '46, Dodd and his wife, "a Berkeley girl," bought a house on Eighth Street.  The couple went on to have four children and the Dodd brought them to Spenger's once a week.

"Later I had a job where I traveled all around the United States," Dodd said. "Once a month I was allowed to fly home." Twelve times a year, Dodd would fly into San Francisco airport and be shuttled across the Bay by a helicopter service provided by the airlines that landed near the spot where automobiles now exit from I-80. Dodd's wife and kids would race up to greet him as he stepped out of the craft, hugging and kissing their dad. Then the entire family would walk away to spend the homecoming together. And they went to Spenger's for dinner.
 

Closure too hard to believe

Ask any of the regulars at Spenger's and they will have stories to tell. They'll tell you how Spenger's used to flood during high water, back when the front door opened up to the mudflats. The older ones will tell you about Strawberry Creek and how it used to run down what is now University Avenue, and about fog so thick people couldn't see across the streets.

Randolph Smith, a patron since the '50s, had a story to tell about Frank Spenger Sr. "I borrowed money from him to buy my first boat," Smith recalled. A professional diver since 1947, Smith said Spenger "was sittin' down there at the end of the counter" when he asked for the loan. "The old man took my hand and felt if like this," he explained, rubbing this reporter's hand, checking for calluses. "Then he said, 'I'll be right back.' He came back with a Safeway bag with money in it," that Smith used to purchase his boat.

"If the old man knew ya, he'd say 'go order a meal. I'll pay for it.'" Smith said. "Then you'd go order a meal and when it came, he'd come sit down. And if that meal wasn't what he thought it should be, BINGO! back into the kitchen that old man went. Yeah. He was a trippy guy."

Then there's Art Patterson, "I'm as old as the trees but my parents brought me here when I was 6 years old," he said. "And my earliest memories of this place are the same that I have now: Every time I come here I see something that I've never seen before.

"My mother, father, brother and myself used to come here from Vallejo," Patterson recalled. "At that time, of course, to come down here was a significant part of the family budget. I think my dad made about $25 a week then, and to come here and to spend money for the family. . . We had to be good kids or we didn't come."

Patterson can't believe Spenger's would ever be closed down. "This history doesn't exist anywhere else," he said. "To prove it, all you have to do is just walk into any room in this building and look at any wall. If you look around you'll find planks that are two inches thick and twelve inches wide. Just go over there and just touch one. You'll get a sense of something that you cannot find in buildings today. It's just too priceless. Just LOOK at all this stuff!"
 

Fish market to restaurant

Frank Spenger Jr., explained that many of the walls are made of teak, some "from the battleship Maryland and two cruisers -- the Lurline and the Harvard, I think -- that used to cruise out of Frisco. I gathered the wood from throughout the country," he said. "I did it with the help of some employees. All the artifacts are originals. Same thing with the portholes."

"This place should be available to all the school kids because they will never see anything like this," Patterson said with enthusiasm. "This whole building is a history of the west.

"Besides," he continued, "the dinners are very nice."

Spenger's Fish Grotto is, after all, a restaurant and a fish market. But how did it evolve from a lean-to with fresh fish wrapped in newspaper into a world famous restaurant? Well, according to Spenger Jr., by the '20s "they stopped us from fishing locally" and the market bought fish from wholesalers. In 1933, "we started the restaurant because Dad wanted a liquor License. In order to have one you had to have a bonafide restaurant. It went on from there."

Now diners choose from an array of menu items that include salmon, Mahi Mahi, halibut, bass, snapper, sole, orange roughy, trout, and kippered cod; one can order meals that are broiled, baked, poached and fried, steamed, creamed, and curried. There are casseroles, omelets, and dishes served Kirkpatrick, Newberry, Florentine, Rockefeller and au gratin. Patrons dine on crab served 10 different ways, and feast on mussels, oysters, lobster and prawns. And despite reports from other newspapers, they also serve pasta, fresh vegetables and salads.

But Art Patterson's favorite dish is called a Pacifica. "It's usually a breakfast dish and you won't always find it on the menu," he said with a smile, "but they serve it all the time. It's made with crab and spinach and eggs. And man, is it ever good."
 

Spenger: 'We want to stay open'

Despite the scheduled closing of Spenger's Fish Grotto Sept. 30, and reports published recently suggesting a number of different scenarios for the landmark -- all of which would result in the closing of the restaurant -- it appears Frank "Bud" Spenger, Jr. wants to try to keep the business his family built open.

One publication's interview with a Berkeley official suggested the site might be purchased by Robert Redford's Sundance Theaters, while other reports have speculated about the building being razed, turned into shops, upscale apartments, a multi-leveled parking lot and more.

Yet in an interview Sunday, Spenger said that after Sept. 30, "we're going to re-open." Despite the fact that the 83-year-old restaurateur gets "a little tired" since he suffered a stroke, he said "We're trying to sign a lease with some other outfit. So we want to stay open.

__________

Carter, James. "Grotto's Longtime Patrons Have Fond Memories: News of
    Pending Closure Brings Crowds Back to Spenger's." Berkeley Voice. Thursday,
    September 10, 1998.  pp. 1, 12.

 

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