The 20th Century Cafe at 198 Gough Street in San Francisco, California was conceived out of years of hard work in front of the oven, thoughts about food, old movies, and drunken discussions about the future (and the past). Searching through vintage cookbooks and traveling through the cites of Vienna, Budapest and Prague brought tremendous inspiration to what will soon be a little "grand" cafe. The menu draws heavily from my more than twenty years cooking and baking experience, as well as my love of California's produce. Nestled on a sunny corner in Hayes Valley, an early 20th century building once owned by famed cartoonist R.L. "Rube" Goldberg will be home to all these ideas and many more.
Despite our meticulous planning and budgeting, we've encountered some unexpected slips climbing the ladder of cafe society. Now I'm reaching out to you to pull us up to the very highest rung. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to offset the cost of a secondary hood system. Not to get too boring, but the existing duct was corroded from years of neglect, and the modern code requires a serious upgrade. Even a time machine such as ours requires some modern mechanics. There was a moment when we feared we would not be able to cook with gas at all! Then a rather elegant solution of two different kinds of hood systems was proposed. Our beautiful copper kettles of jam and toffee can now bubble away, while the goulash simmers, the dumplings boil, the bagels bake and the knish knot.
We are slated to open the beginning of June 2013. We have come so far. Now you can be the hero that gets this beautiful cafe open!
We hope you've enjoyed our movie. Thank you for taking the time to visit, and for bringing the 20th century into the future!
Very sincerely,
Michelle Polzine
Risks and challenges
As you can see from our movie, it took mountains of effort, paperwork and waiting, waiting, waiting, but we now have all our necessary permits, and construction has begun. Although our contractor is very experienced with building restaurants in San Francisco, the codes here change constantly, and there may still be a few bumps ahead. We have faced many challenges with our permitting process, and we've managed to overcome them, thanks to a very experienced team willing to keep coming up with ideas until solutions are found. It is the same with any challenge we face. An open, creative mind will always find the answer. We designed our own space. We've assembled a fantastic collection of china and flatware from scratch. And we have hundreds of amazing recipes. The portal is opening, but all of our efforts are nothing without your willingness to jump in.
Installing our separate hood systems is the last major obstacle. Please do support us in this task so we can close up the walls and start cooking - for you!
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Funding period
- (28 days)