In 1966 I got a job as a busboy at Blum’s in downtown San Francisco. The restaurant was below the west coast flagship Macy’s Department Store. Macy’s was a big deal – and so was Blum’s. It was in the heart of the Union Square shopping – with City of Paris, I Magnin, Gumps, The White House, and scores more shops for the well-heeled San Francisco shopper. Back in the day, one always dressed to go downtown.
Blum’s catered to the blue-haired ladies with their granddaughters in white gloves and mary-janes eating monstrous banana splits as well as the well-dressed casual shopper getting a slice of their famous Coffee Crunch cake.
Ernest Weil was the original baker who created the famous Crunch Cake while working at Blum’s back in the mid 1940’s. He left Blum’s in 1948 to open his own bakery, Fantasia Confections, in Laurel Village in SF. He continued to make the Coffee Crunch Cake long after Blum’s closed their doors. It was one of Fantasia’s best sellers. People would travel many miles to get that cake!
I got the recipe from a woman named Helen Kane who I was doing volunteer work with for Project Open Hand in 1995 and then bought his cookbook Love to Bake Recipes from Fantasia Confections in 2006 where he had the step-by-step-by-step instructions. I’ve made it a few times – it really is good!
At this point I had gotten a work permit, although, technically, I was supposed to be 16 to work at Blum’s. It wasn’t the first time I have hedged the truth.
I was good at the job, the waitresses liked me and I actually made some pretty good tips – plus I got to eat a limited menu free lunch and all the other stuff I could sneak.
Our manager was a woman named Mrs Brown. She was a nasty woman who preferred to communicate at the top of her voice weaving contempt, disdain, and sarcasm into her words. Actually, some of my more favorite traits in myself, but not on the receiving end as a kid.
One early Saturday morning I was on the opening crew and was getting ice for the bus stations. There was a standing rule that we always took ice from the bottom of the bin – never from the top. It’s obvious sanitation sense because ice machines need proper rotation – the oldest gets used first and doesn’t sit on the bottom getting nasty.
That Saturday morning the bin was completely full and as I tried to open the bottom, ice was spilling out into the kitchen. I started taking it from the top until I could relieve some of the weight to get back to the bottom.
In walks Mrs Brown and before I had a chance to explain, she started in on me – berating me, calling my stupid, can’t follow simple orders, worthless… she went on and on while staff just stood there in shock. I casually reached over and opened the bottom door and ice went shooting across the kitchen, burying her up to her ankles. I just looked at her and said “that’s why I was taking it out of the top.” The staff broke into hysterics and she sped off in a huff.
I finished my shift and was called into her office. I was fired for insubordination.
And it was worth it.