The Holding Company in San Francisco, California: A Restaurant Review

With a name like The Holding Company, and located in San Francisco, you have to know you are conjuring up a Janis Joplin / hippie vibe even if that really isn't the general mood you want to shoot for. And yet, this Financial District combination of restaurant and late-night bar is unabashedly a sports bar and a bastion of the sort of Clean Cut Conservatism who would likely make fun of Janis if she walked in for her general shabbiness and lack of thoroughness in shaving and grooming.

The place definitely seems to be more bar than restaurant, though they do have a fairly full menu. It's one of the few eateries in the Financial District open until 1 a.m., though only on Monday to Friday nights. The bar is full service and consists largely of what appeared to be aging businessmen either getting loaded, or hoping to pick up whatever young office girls happened to wander in, or both simultaneously. You figure the pro women have probably noticed a scene like this and staked it out by now, so if you're a skeezy sweaty older dude with no redeeming personal or social qualities other than the fact that you have a Portfolio and make a Good Salary, this place might be a little slice of heaven for you in downtown San Francisco.

As I write this, the daily food "specials" are $5.50 for a cup (not a bowl) of soup, $10.50 for a chicken enchilada, and $5.75 for any pie or cake slice on the dessert menu (a la mode is one dollar extra.) In terms of the bar, all I can tell you is that the regular price for a bottle of beer is about $7, which drops to "only" $5 at Happy Hour. That one piece of information convinced me to not even think about drinking here.

Appetizers, lunch and dinner are all standard diner fare, a cut above Denny's but not a huge cut. The prices, on the other hand, are significantly higher. I only wound up here because a business contact insisted on meeting here, and the impression I got during my visit is that the premium charged is for Office Joes who'd be more comfortable in some sort of a "red state" area to have an environment that feels comfortable and safe to them, in which to mingle with like-minded bankers and stock traders, and to try to pick up on ditzy office clerical worker types who happen to wander in for whatever reason. Unless that's the sort of thing you're looking for, I can assure you that you'll not be happy here.