Friends of the Doggie
Behold
Da Dog
by D.S. Black
Doggie
Diner paintings
by Anna Conti
A day to benifit the Dog's restoration
Doggie
Diner Photo Gallery
by James Stark
Ode
to the Doggie Diner Sign
by Denise Delaney/Patty O'Furniture
Behold Da Dog
For tenants in San Francisco (over 2/3 of us rent), it is cat city, owing to the paucity of green open spaces. Dog owners are an embattled minority. Their animals' soil coat every square inch of grass, making lawn play a dangerous pastime.
Even so, perhaps inevitably: Dogs are the objects of worship, and contention- both as living beings, and as kitsch icon. There remains one darling dachshund-on-stick where it was left behind on Ocean Beach by the defunct Doggie Diner chain. (Other Doggie Diner heads are in private hands.) Atop a rusted pole at the corner of 46th Ave. and Sloat is the sole surviving shill on location since 1965.
Doggie Diners were among the first of their kind in the years following WWII. The chain was based in Oakland. In its hey day, thirty outlets served up hotdogs and hamburgers around the greater Bay Area. No visit to the zoo or Playland-at-the-Beach was complete without a stop at the DD.
I never had the pleasure of eating there in its original incarnation, but the successor Carousel Restaurant is a reasonable facsimile. For patrons today, it provides the same inexpensive comfort food without frills or pretension.
An unlikely combination of local history buffs, carnivore nostalgists, and humorous icon-worshippers have mounted a campaign to save this Dog on location, now that the land is owned by the Sloat Garden Center, which is interested in further developing its property. 100 or so supporters turned out on a rainy Sunday to rally in support of the Dog.
"If this were the last Starbucks, we'd fight to preserve that," said author Gil Bates, whose filmscript Dogalypse Now is forthcoming from Modem Times Press.
Bates' luncheon companion paused over a chile dog to reflect. "Not since Bummer & Lazarus-those canine sidekicks of Emperor Norton-has there been such an outpouring of affection for a San Francisco mascot," said San Francisco history buff Ford Henry.
Perhaps the Dog sign is just one more bit of 20th century detritus waiting to be replaced by its Y2K dot commie equivalent. In response to the threat of removal supporters of the Dog and civic history have lobbied for landmark status to be conferred on this totemic mutt.
