Caffe Trieste

Caffé Trieste is a chain of six Italian-themed coffeehouse plus one retail store in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.

1956: The "Caffé Trieste" is opened by Giovanni Giotta (aka "Papa Gianni") who in 1950 had emigrated to San Francisco, California, from the small fishing town of Rovigno, Italy (now part of Croatia). Remembering the espresso houses of Trieste, Italy, Giotta opened "Caffe Trieste" which is said to be the first espresso house on the West Coast.

Cappuccino

The original "Caffé Trieste" in San Francisco's North Beach quickly becomes popular among the neighborhood's primarily Italian residents. "It was all Italian people," Giotta said, "But I got the American people to like cappuccino." ["50 Years of Art and Coffee" by Cecilia M. Vega, "San Francisco Chronicle", April 1, 2006 [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/04/01/MNGTRI1V1U1.DTL] ]

A meeting place for authors and artists

The "Caffé Trieste" also becomes a convenient meeting place for Beat movement celebrities like Alan Watts, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Brautigan Bob Kaufman, Gregory Corso, Michael McClure, Kenneth Rexroth, and many other activists and artists like Margo St. James and Carol Doda who lived in North Beach in the 1950s and 1960s. [Mick Sinclair, "San Francisco: A Cultural and Literary History" (Signal Books, 2004), page 176 ] The cafe has been featured in several movies and many photography books. [ Ira Nowinski with Charles Wehrenberg, Rebecca Solnit, et. al., "Ira Nowinski's San Francisco", The Bancroft Library/Heyday Books, Berkeley, p.56/57, ISBN 1-59714-040-6 ] [Ira Nowinski with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, et. al., "Cafe Society: Photographs and Poetry from San Francisco's North Beach", A Seefood Studios Book, San Francisco 1978, ISBN 0-916860-05-1] Francis Ford Coppola wrote much of the screenplay for The Godfather while sitting in the Caffé Trieste. It remains a favorite destination for writers, artists, hipsters, neighborhood residents, and tourists from all over the world.

1982: Caffé Trieste opens a Sausalito branch. Since 2003 the caffe has become a chain, with a branch in Berkeley and two more in San Francisco, one on (at Gough) and one on New Montgomery Street (at Howard).

2006: Caffe Trieste celebrates its 50th anniversary in April, 2006. ["50 Years of Art and Coffee"]

2008: The newest Caffe Trieste opens in downtown San Jose, the first in the south bay area.

References

External links

* [http://www.caffetrieste.com Official website]