For 108 years, the Swedish American Hall has stood on Market Street, serving as a venue for weddings and celebrations in what was once a largely Scandinavian neighborhood. The intervening decades have brought changes, but while a 2014 renovation spooked live music fans accustomed to seeing clubs implode, the building — an umbrella for several discrete venues — has not fundamentally changed. New condos are breaking ground next door, but if anything, the building is now being used to its full potential. There is no Swedish fishiness (so to speak), and we can all relax.
The 1907 structure really was overdue for a facelift, according to Kate Michels, Director of Sales and Marketing for Ne Timeas Restaurant Group, which took over the Swedish American Hall. They've partnered with the cocktail team Bon Vivants (the geniuses behind Trick Dog) and the music impresarios at Noise Pop, best known for the festival of the same name.
Apart from fresh paint and sexy wallpaper, the most obvious change to the casual observer is that the larger, Noise Pop-affiliated events have all moved from the basement to the 300-person venue upstairs, meaning no more sweaty punk shows in a dank basement.
The new programming "would have been kind of cramped in the old Cafe du Nord," Michels said, understating matters quite a bit.
While it had always been a seven-night-a-week kind of place, Cafe du Nord has gone from being a "calendared, ticketed experience" (in Michels' words) to one where the music takes a backseat to the food and cocktails. Nowadays, you might get some New Orleans jazz or a chanteuse at the piano, but they're meant to complement the broiled oysters, rib eye steaks, and ice cream sundaes. Strike another blow against S.F.'s reputation as a late-night wasteland: Cafe du Nord's kitchen churns out food until 1:30 a.m.
Meanwhile, a new Basque restaurant (Aatxe) with a highly coveted chef's counter has taken up in what were formerly offices and a long-defunct café. The hype is worth it, too: When this critic visited in May, he was wowed by the pork trotter, the trumpet mushrooms a la plancha, and the five-piece pintxo flight. Curiously enough, the space held a Basque restaurant once before, and during the Aatxe buildout — which, as such things tend to do, took longer than expected — the team discovered doors to nowhere and other relics of the building's alleged past as a speakeasy. (No ghosts, however.)
With so many prestigious organizations, is there any room left for the Swedes?
"Yes, they actually took over the entire fourth floor, where they have a library and a conference room," Michels said. "Every month, they still meet. They're still very much a part of that building."
Surely one of the old-timers knows some stories about that speakeasy and whether any doubloons (or kroner) are buried behind the hidden doors. Michels was cheerfully reluctant to elaborate much further.
"The Swedes love to tell stories. Half of it, I'm not sure if it's the truth or not."
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