The Bold Italic’s 2020 Awards

This article is part of The Bold Italic’s 2020 Awards, which celebrate the Bay Area’s small businesses and local residents who have hustled and shown creativity throughout 2020. See all the award winners here.

Cocktails in one of the two cities that pioneered the cocktail renaissance of the past couple decades (SF and NYC) are ridiculously excellent at hundreds of places, so we are spoiled with a wealth of to-go drink options to get us through 2020.

But the ultimate winner of this category is Nopa, chosen by the readers as TBI’s Best To-Go Cocktails in San Francisco.

Nopa has been a modern-day classic in an era that launched pioneering SF bars from Bourbon & Branch to the Alembic. It has been both a superb restaurant and a unique bar (packed even on Monday nights) where former bar manager Neyah White was serving sherry cocktails long before sherry trended, or French, Germanic, and Eastern European eau de vie starring in elegant cocktails.

Their delivery menu sticks to wine and beer but pickup offers straightforward classics like a Negroni alongside easy-drinking cocktails like The Summit: St. George Terroir gin, grapefruit, lime, and honey.

We caught up with Holly Jossel (chef Laurence’s wife) to talk about Nopa’s year and how they’re faring. Read the Q&A below as well as the other stellar nominees for best to-go cocktails.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

The Bold Italic: How have you managed to stay afloat this year?
Jossel:
We’re holding on because we simply have to: for our staff, suppliers, neighbors, and purveyors. We’re trying to stay optimistic, evolve through the chaos, support our community, and serve the highest quality, beautiful food and cocktails out of boxes and bottles for as long as we have to.

How are you holding up now, heading into another month of shelter-in-place?
Like everybody else. Not good. We are barely keeping our head above water.

What are your hopes for 2021?
Peace, health, purpose, progress, justice, and prosperity for everyone.

How can people help support your business?
We want to nourish and feed our community. The most direct way to support Nopa, and all restaurants at this moment, is to order takeout. A lot.

Other nominees for Best To-Go Cocktails in San Francisco in 2020:

1. PCH (Pacific Cocktail Haven)

Though SF locals have long had the benefit of bars run by Kevin Diedrich, now more of the nation and drink world knows about him and his bar PCH (Pacific Cocktail Haven) after their triple wins in the 2020 Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards (Best American Cocktail Bar, American Bartender of the Year, Best American Bar Team).

Though his sidewalk parklets and partnership to-go dinners with fellow Filipino and chef Francis Ang’s Pinoy Heritage have been a big draw — and they just launched their annual Miracle on PCH holiday menu — it’s now back to delivery and takeout only in this latest shelter-in-place.

We’ve covered this dynamic place before, and why it remains a local (and national) bar treasure. “We’ve tried our hardest to transition as quickly as possible (and the city allows) to keep PCH public-facing,” Diedrich said. “From being a one-man show for the first couple of months to expanding outdoors and using our PPP loan to get the bar team back to work. It hasn’t been easy and saying we’re afloat is barely something we can say.”

2. Horsefeather

Since opening in 2016, Horsefeather’s warm woods, teal blues, and art deco and craftsman-style influence have defined a beloved NoPa/Western Addition neighborhood favorite. Opened by bar vets Justin Lew and Ian Scalzo (who were behind many of the city’s pioneering bars, including Bourbon & Branch), and run by GM Dzu Nguyen, the cocktails and service draw alongside their food, all available for takeout and delivery.

When the pandemic hit, the bar went into hibernation for a couple months, taking time to plot out their takeout program and save some money. Eventually, when the city offered outdoor seating, they had their atrium ready to go and then built parklets, reinstituted brunch, and offered to-go cocktails.

Owner Justin Lew says sales are dismal — “easily a 95% drop” — and hopes the city will step up to support business owners like him and their teams. He also welcomes orders through various links in their Instagram bio, gift card purchases, and support for their staff relief fund.

3. The Snug

Since opening late 2017, The Snug has been a Pac Heights neighborhood fixture, in part due to chef Brian Shin’s elevated bar food, and certainly bar manager Jacob Racusin’s elegant but crushable cocktails — as well as that corner view over Fillmore Street. Their food and drink is thankfully available via curbside pickup and most major delivery apps.

Their brown buttered coffee is meant for winter nights (and days), and their Aloe Vera (tequila, aloe vera, wheatgrass, lime) cocktail is a crowd-pleaser. The business started with takeout in May and then opened for outdoor dining in June, going all-in on a beautiful outdoor parklet that a Snug owner Jacob Racusin built himself.

“It’s tough, not going to lie,” he told The Bold Italic. “We were really getting into a groove with outdoor dining (and invested a lot of money into it), so it’s pretty brutal to have to shut it all down. Takeout helps slow the bleed but it’s not how many of us are set up to survive, let alone thrive.” To support The Snug, order takeout directly from them (not delivery apps) and check out their holiday gift boxes with cocktails, merchandise, and glassware, as well as gift cards.

Everything is on their website.

4. Macondray

With the unfortunate timing of opening December 2019 just before the pandemic, Macondray has such a bar vet team behind it (owner Aaron Paul, former bar director for Daniel Patterson’s Alta Group restaurants, and partner Jake Roberts, longtime bar manager at Harper & Rye), that it was an immediate Polk Street hit. Lush green plants, airy white and green interior, and balanced cocktails sealed the deal.

Though they are closed during the current shelter-in-place order, they do have cocktail pickup hours on their site. Heading into winter, Macondray owner Aaron Paul told The Bold Italic he’s “terrified and a little defeated. For the last few months that we’ve had a parklet and the brief period where indoor dining was allowed we were able to bring back about 70% of our staff. Last week we had to lay everyone off again right before the holidays and it is just not a nice feeling. Our staff is our family, we are very protective of them and it feels like a failure not being able to fully provide for them right now.”

His hope for 2021?

“I hope that we can all be kinder to each other. When I moved here 16 years ago I was blown away by how friendly this city was and I feel like we’ve lost a little of that the last few years. I also hope that Emily from Yelp stops calling the bar every day and asking if we want to advertise with them. The answer is still no, Emily.”

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