The Harper Lee of Social Media...

October 23, 2020 11:16 AM

is Red's Java House.
posted by chavenet (8 comments total)

I imagine the 2012 one-tweet effort was a fortuitous alignment of the owner reading about twitter in the newspaper and the manager's son helping out over the summer for college money. Red's a monument to not changing a damn thing.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 11:59 AM on October 23, 2020 [4 favorites]

I have to imagine there are a lot of businesses/people like Red's Java House who tweeted once and quickly said to themselves "this bullshit is a complete waste of time".
posted by jonathanhughes at 12:13 PM on October 23, 2020 [5 favorites]

I’m hoping there’s no unpublished Go Set A Watchman due to come out.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:45 PM on October 23, 2020 [2 favorites]

I don't get it, it's a totally generic tweet, not witty or incisive or anything. It's "Yay, our team won, come get food and alcohol here." I mean, there's lots worse tweets, but it's sort of like tweeting "I am here" and then never tweeting anything again (except "I am here" is a much more compelling single tweet than "Congrats @SFGiants 2012 World Series Champions! The season is over, but keep the hood alive, come by Reds for a #bloodymary, burger & beer!")
posted by rikschell at 1:10 PM on October 23, 2020 [7 favorites]

Man I loved Red's Java House. I grew up right across the street and my father would take me there some weekends for a burger. Way back when that old pier was used by the fire department, they'd apparently run the hoses and drive the trucks around, which was the coolest thing to me as young child.

Inside Red's they have some amazing photos of the bay bridge being built, and just all around great atmosphere. Plus there's something awesome and unique about how their burgers taste. It's the mix of sourdough and lots of mustard that really makes it special.
posted by Carillon at 2:53 PM on October 23, 2020 [2 favorites]

Strange blog post. Red's Java House is a San Francisco institution, but not because it made one tweet and lost the password to the account. This recent article on the health of the business has more information.

I don't get the burgers at all though. At least, last time I had one it was fully assembled at least 30 minutes before, including sauce, and was sitting in a steam table environment to stay warm. The bun was the texture of porridge where it was touching the meat. Yuck. People love the burgers so I assume I did something wrong? Got unlucky?

The nice thing about Red's is grabbing a beer and sitting out back on the waterfront.
posted by Nelson at 4:12 PM on October 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

OMG I miss Red's Java House. I used to work about five blocks away, and every once in a while I would go there for lunch and try to keep the gulls from stealing my fries on the back patio.

I even wrote a scene at Red's into a fanfic (Supernatural, gen).
posted by suelac at 6:21 PM on October 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

It sounds like a great place.
posted by freakazoid at 6:17 AM on October 24, 2020 [1 favorite]