Siblings Elena and John Duggan, shown with the sign from the 1937 Original Joe’s, provide a California twist on Italian cuisine.
Carl Nolte/S.F. Chronicle
The Bay Area is famous for many things: It’s beautiful, it’s vibrant, it celebrates its past, and it’s busy inventing the future. The region is also passionate about food: Alice Waters developed California cuisine here with fresh ingredients — local, organic, sustainable. Her Chez Panisse restaurant set off a food revolution. And now the region is an outpost of foodies, diners pursuing every possible culinary trend, served with an epicurean flourish and just a touch of exotic sauce.
But I’ll bet you a nice dinner that the most popular restaurant style is centered around the California version of Italian food, at a place called Joe’s, where a hearty meal is served in a noisy restaurant, where the food is old-school and consistently good.
The place has its own style, its own look, featuring a cocktail lounge, cozy booths and “exhibition cooking” — a counter where customers can watch the cooks at work stirring, frying, mixing, the gas turned high and the flames leaping off the grill.
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Up close, it was a show, a great night out, a San Francisco special.
John and Elena Duggan, pictured under the mural salvaged from the original Original Joe’s, have helped turn a San Francisco classic into a Bay Area restaurant empire.
Carl Nolte/S.F. Chronicle
The flagship of this style is Original Joe’s on Washington Square, where three generations of the Duggan family have grown into a wildly successful operation of six eating places around the region. The newest — Walnut Creek Joe’s — opened last fall, bringing a touch of San Francisco to Contra Costa County’s core. It was an instant hit. On busy nights, diners without reservations have to wait hours for a table.
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It’s a story of family, faith and good food. “We serve traditional food with modern touches,” said Elena Duggan, owner with her younger brother, John, of what they call the “Original Joe’s brand.”
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The restaurants also come with a special ingredient. Original Joe’s hopes to be a venue for special occasions, date nights, dinners to remember, birthdays, holidays, graduations, engagements, dinners with old friends, a welcoming place, almost as though the restaurant were part of a family.
Original Joe’s comes with a family story. The founder was Tony Rodin, who was born in Croatia and came to the United States as a cook on a merchant ship. He was involved with other partners in a restaurant called Joe’s on Broadway in San Francisco.
The partners split up, and Rodin and his partner, Louis Rocca, opened his own place on Taylor Street in the Tenderloin in 1937, the year the Golden Gate Bridge opened. They called it Original Joe’s to show it wasn’t just any Joe’s. It wasn’t much, 14 stools at the counter, sawdust on the floor.
The Tenderloin wasn’t the mess it is now. The restaurant had a theater crowd, politicians, office customers. It was open late, became a big hit and expanded. Rodin and Rocca operated the place for 40 years until Rocca sold his share to Tony’s daughter, Marie, and her husband, John J. Duggan. The Duggans had two children, Elena and John A., who soon became involved in the business.
The place was a local landmark, an outpost in a changing Tenderloin. “We had everybody from the head politician to the head prostitute, and we love them all,” the senior John Duggan told the Chronicle.
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A late-night fire badly damaged the Original Joe’s in San Francisco’s Tenderloin in 2007, and the family decided to start a new version of the restaurant on Washington Square in North Beach.
Mike Kepka/S.F. Chronicle
In the fall of 2007, a late-night fire badly damaged the restaurant and the surrounding building. It took years to settle up with the insurance company and more time to plan the next step.
By this time the children, John and Elena, were making the decisions. They both had gone to the University of San Francisco. John played varsity basketball at USF and had a pro sports career in Europe. “I learned the value of teamwork,” he said. Elena learned the retail business.
Original Joe’s had a good reputation and a good following. But the Tenderloin had declined dramatically, and reopening there was out of the question.
“We could have retired the brand,” John said. But the two were young and ambitious and decided to start a new Original Joe’s, this time in North Beach. They found a place on the north edge of Washington Square.
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Elena and John Duggan sit in a booth at the North Beach restaurant, are owners of what they call the “Original Joe’s brand.”
Carl Nolte/S.F. Chronicle
It was a big leap. A new Original Joe’s “had to be done right,” the younger Duggans thought. It would take money and careful thought. North Beach was a completely different market than the old location — different customers, different vibe.
“We were scared,” Elena said. Not only that, the parents had doubts. John and Elena went ahead, building a much larger restaurant but still incorporating pieces from the old place, like murals. They put in new booths identical to the old.
“We wouldn’t let my mother in until it was all finished, ready to go,” Elena said, afraid Marie would find fault. Then they got the verdict: perfect.
The timing was good, too. The North Beach dining scene had just gone through big changes, and a new restaurant with old San Francisco bones hit just right.
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The Duggans opened Joe’s of Westlake in Daly City in 2016 after purchasing it from the original owner.
Gabrielle Lurie/S.F. Chronicle
The next chapter came when Joe’s of Westlake, owned by the Scatena family in Daly City, went up for sale. The Scatenas had worked with Tony Rodin in the old days and kept the Joe’s style. There was a big difference, though. The Westlake operation was more suburban, more the center of a neighborhood. Some customers came there for Sunday dinner, every Sunday, same booth, same waiter.
“They had a really loyal following,” John Duggan said. “When I talked to the customers there, they had some advice for us: ‘Don’t screw it up.’ They didn’t. After two years the place reopened as Original Joe’s Westlake.
There were two more chapters. The Duggans married, had children, three boys for him, three girls for her. They lived separate lives but stayed close. Elena eventually had family relations in the small mountain town of San Bartolo Morelos, not far from Mexico City. The girls went there often and learned about Mexican cooking from their grandmother.
Elena Duggan branched out by opening Elena’s Mexican Restaurant in San Francisco’s West Portal neighborhood in 2004.
Brontë Wittpenn/S.F. Chronicle
Elena wanted to split off just a bit from the Italian food style of the two big Original Joe’s.
She and John both had grown up on the west side of the city. “We came to think the West Portal neighborhood was underserved,” John said. “We knew the neighborhood, we grew up there.” So two years ago Elena’s Mexican Restaurant opened on West Portal Avenue, with lines out the door and up the street.
The Duggans, who also opened Little Original Joe’s in West Portal in 2020 and the Marina in 2024, have always kept a careful eye on the business. “I’m the front guy,” John said, “I shake hands and talk to the customers. I saw that many of our San Francisco customers came from the East Bay who had driven all the way across the bridge to go to a San Francisco restaurant.”
The family opened Little Original Joe’s, a smaller full-service version of the restaurant, in San Francisco’s Marina District in 2024.
Yuri Avila/S.F. Chronicle
Next, after careful scouting they spotted Stanford’s Restaurant on Main Street in Walnut Creek. They liked the area. “Walnut Creek is a world-class city,” John said.
Elena liked the site. “When I walked in, I loved it,” she said. “I could close my eyes and see an Original Joe’s, the cocktail area here, the kitchen, the dining area.”
Original Joe’s expanded last summer to Walnut Creek, the first East Bay outlet of the popular San Francisco restaurant.
Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle
Walnut Creek Joe’s opened last summer. A priest blessed the place, the mayor of Walnut Creek made a speech, they cut a ribbon. A few days later, there was a kitchen fire, and after repairs it made a comeback. “So we had two grand openings,” John said.
Walnut Creek Joe’s was a hit, too. Crowded every night.
But it’s a tough business, depending as it does on public tastes. For every good story about restaurants, there is a sad one. Old and new restaurants close every day. “You have to be careful,” John Duggan said. “You are as good as your last meal.”
Dining and Cooking