Zam Zam

What you need to know

The Drinks

A short list of classic stirred and shaken drinks, with the gin martini as the house specialty. The smaller pour is called a Bruno. No food, and no kitchen.

The Story

Samson Mooshei opened it in 1941 as the Persian Aub Zam Zam. The room is still built around a curved horseshoe bar under an oil mural of the Persian romance of Khosrow and Shirin. His son Bruno took over around 1951 and ran it until he died in 2000.

Bruno is the reason people know the place. He had rules: sit at the bar and not at the tables, two drinks maximum, cash ready, know your order before you opened your mouth. He ejected people who broke them, and getting thrown out became a minor rite of passage. The tourist version, that ordering a vodka martini got you banned for life, is a compression of all of that. He was a gin partisan, but the vodka line survives because it is the most quotable rule, not because it was the only one. A longtime regular from the flat upstairs, Bob Clarke, took the bar on after Bruno died and still runs it.

One correction worth making, because it circulates: the bar opened in 1941, not 1933. The 1933 comes from its original street number further along Haight.

Practical Info

Price: $$. Martini around $12, the smaller Bruno around $10.

Payment: Cash, with an ATM inside.

Hours: Monday to Friday from 3pm, weekends from 1pm, until 2am. There is no official website, so call 415-861-2545 if the timing matters.

Bourdain: No Reservations, San Francisco, aired August 2009. He drank martinis here, and a local critic noted with some horror that he also ordered a beer.