Meat and Liquor? Like Guns and Butter? Not even close.

Tommy's Joynt restaurant is a classic San Francisco hangout. The original Tommy, a San Francisco radio personality and Parks Commissioner named Tommy Harris, opened his restaurant in 1947. The restaurant has enjoyed a sort of "Cheers" notoriety and has seen the business of Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Herb Caen, opera singer Jussi Björling, and senator Dianne Feinstein. So what is it that sets Tommy's Joynt apart from other establishments? It could be the enormous selection of hearty items, all for under $8 and many for under $5; however, my guess is that the pledge of Hot Corned Beef Cocktails as advertised by a neon sign in the window (as pictured above) is what brings the customers in droves. That, or perhaps it's the ingenious way in which the "y" in "Joynt" on the restaurant sign resembles a little cocktail glass... perhaps filled with juicy hot corned beef grain alcohol.

Upon entering the establishment, I sat down at the bar intending to order a Hot Corned Beef Cocktail. I figured combining two items I enjoy separately would yield fantastic results. It made me wonder about other potentially glorious culinary coalitions: rare prime rib and Boston cream pie, hollandaise sauce and Orange Julius, Neapolitan ice cream and turkey bacon! YUMMY! I decided the Hot Corned Beef Cocktail could use a Sauerkraut and Russian Dressing Tom Collins chaser and began an addendum to my order when the bar tender interrupted me.

I was pained to discover that the neon sign in the window was sheer false advertising. The bar tender claimed that "Hot Corned Beef" and "Cocktails" were two separate offerings and that Tommy's Joynt did, in fact, serve both but not together in the same glass. Despite a threat of a call to the Better Business Bureau of San Francisco to report their specious promise of a tasty meat beverage, the bar tender declined to make me a Hot Corned Beef Cocktail. I insisted that I'd settle for lukewarm corned beef. He refused my compromise. Well then, how about some corned beef-infused vodka on the rocks? No dice. Pinto beans and hamhock gin martini? Nope. And, get this, even though Dungeness is truly huge in San Francisco they didn't have even a halfway respectable 12-year-old crab cake bourbon. I was forced to settle for a Miller Genuine Draft and the BBQ Sloppy Joe Sandwich with mashed potatoes. Of course, I had to mix them together myself, but ultimately it was quite tasty!