Don't ask me about how my veal is done, Kay.
Posted on 09/26/2022 11:50:52 AM PDT by nickcarraway
The fabled and beloved family-style Italian restaurant Bacchi's Inn, tucked away in North Lake Tahoe's Lake Forest neighborhood, shut its doors for good on Sept. 11 after one final Sunday dinner service.
With one last service to a full house of mostly locals there to pay homage, the restaurant — which had just celebrated its 90th birthday — quietly shut its doors on Sept. 11 for good.
Set back from a little inlet in a neighborhood called Lake Forest, the fabled Italian restaurant came to life on the lake’s North Shore, starting as a summer haunt during the basin’s rise to prominence as a destination.
Throughout the years, the many patrons of Bacchi’s, along with the family itself, gave Tahoe some of its most memorable sightings and stories.
On-again, off-again Hollywood couple Al Pacino and Diane Keaton were spotted dining there multiple times in 1973 during the filming of “The Godfather Part II” on the West Shore, along with the crew of that movie. Rumor has it that the dark-hued study of Michael Corleone, juxtaposed with the shimmering blue lake in the backdrop, was, in part, inspired by the dark, rustic interiors of Bacchi’s.
More recently, the restaurant made headlines in the wake of a 2010 bear encounter when its owner shot and killed a 500-pound black bear that was making Bacchi’s dining room his winter home.
For Tahoe’s locals, Bacchi’s was the place to go to mark our most important events: anniversaries, graduations, celebrations. My own family counted itself among the restaurant’s regulars — my first memory of being dressed up, and itchy, for a fancy restaurant dinner was at Bacchi’s Inn.
The restaurant was instantly movie-theater dark as we would duck in from the long Tahoe summer afternoon.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Don't ask me about how my veal is done, Kay.
Pacino and Keaton ate their grandfather?
Oops - Ate there during Godfather II.
Freakin' cannibals.
>>[Pacino, Keaton Ate Their Godfather II]<<
Gruesome
“Let’s eat grandma!”
Grandma: Aren’t you missing a comma? Tell me you’re missing a comma.
Never made it there. What, was it a mobbed-up place? Kinda looks like it.
My favorite restaurant at Tahoe NW was the elegant Pfiefer House on River Road (Highway 89). Apparently closed. Their breaded schnitzel with mushroom sauce was elegant. Such a loss.
Captain McCluskey (in an Italian restaurant): How is the Italian food here?
Waiter: Much better than the Chinese food. We’re Italian. Try the veal.
Waitress: Have you decided what you would like for dessert, Mr. Cor-le-o-ne?
Michael: You can have my answer now, waitress. Nothing.
Captain McCluskey (in an Italian restaurant): How is the Italian food here?
“It’s so good it will blow your mind.”
The article is well written and informative, uncommonly so for
an SFGATE reporter. Three very practical reasons for the closure: The current owner (a decendant from the founding family) is 78 and has been doing this work for at least 65 years. He’s understandably had enough of the pace and demands.
There is a local housing crisis, with techies buying up lots of property. Many places where the restaurant staff would have considered living are now turned into AirNB hotels and thus, off the market.
Even more critically, the average 20 to 40 y/o couple today are just fine getting a Fast Food dinner closer to where they live. Most consumers of that age group do not ‘dine’ in the grand old sense of that term.
It’s also hard to find and keep new employees who fit this sort of work.
There used to be a smaller, but similar seafood restaurant in Berkeley, Ca. all the way down University Ave. at the Marina. It was called Spenger’s Fish Grotto.
Spengers was open for 128 years, and closed down October 25th, 2018. Times, expenses and customer expectations will change with each new generation.
Like many family owned and operated businesses, restaurants seldom survive into a fourth generation
“Canoles to go please.”
(“Yawn”). In reality nobody goes there— too crowded.
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