I was lucky enough to pal around with Other Cafe owners Bob, Chip, and Richard when the comedy club was hitting its stride in the late ’70’s, which meant that I was exposed to quite a bit of Cafe-related prankery. On one occasion, the Cafe was closed to the public on a Sunday night so that Bob could throw a private dance party for staff and friends. Bob invited me, encouraged me to bring a cassette of dance music, and also insisted that it was a pajama party — something he had always wanted to do. (Bob was a big fan of Hugh Hefner’s 1960’s “Pajama Party” TV show.) I invited a few friends, and at the designated time my group strolled down Cole Street in our robes and pj’s, eager to experience the Cafe under potentially very frisky circumstances. Upon arrival at the club, I flung open the door and stared blankly at a room full of distinctly non-pajama-clad party people. NOT a pajama party — the joke was on me! After a half hour or so, I stopped worrying about explaining myself to others and simply enjoyed the freedom of dancing to my musical program in silky pajamas.

A few weeks later, Bob invited me to join Frish (his wife at the time) and him for a spaghetti dinner at Bob Sarlatte’s house. (This was during the period when Sarlatte actually received people at his home, before dubbing himself “The Genius.”) A dinner at the Sarlattes’ was something which Bob and I had imagined for a long time, given the enormous potential for laughs, so I only hestitated for a moment when Bob added that we were going to surprise Sarlatte by showing up in our pajamas. On the appointed evening, Bob and Frish arrived at my apartment in pajamas for the drive to Sarlatte’s house, putting any lingering fears to rest that I was going to be victimized again. During the drive, we giggled in anticipation of Sarlatte’s reaction to our cheekiness. We pulled up at the Sarlattes’, got out of the car … and then I heard behind me the frenzied laughter of Bob and Frish, which I instictively knew was trouble. Sure enough, they peeled off their pajamas to reveal normal clothes underneath, leaving me to face my favorite comedian in pj’s. Burned again, by the same joke!

A happy postscript to this story: Some time later, Sarlatte dropped by my apartment after performing at the Cafe for a late night session of beer drinking and plumbing the depths of my record collection. The wheels in his head began to turn, which ultimately resulted in another special dance night at the Other Cafe, in which he performed as Casey Kasem and I spun the records he introduced. I would hope that “The Genius” remembers this night as fondly as I do.

My memories of the early Café days are more flashes than cohesive memories as I was just a young lad (having been born in 1970). However being Bob’s nephew came with its privileges as I often times got to visit my “cool” uncle in this strange environment called The Other Café and to see live comedy performances on a stage that appeared to me at the time to be HUGE and in front of what felt like THOUSANDS of people.

These late 70’s memories include:
-seeing my comedic Idol Robin Williams get on stage after the headliner finished and doing his “thing”. I understood absolutely nothing he was talking about but found myself laughing uncontrollably with the audience. However I kept waiting to no avail for the patented “NA-NU NA-NU” greeting that made me laugh every Wednesday night on television.
- finding the “fat face” of Michael Pritchard irresistibly funny. (Hey, I was 8 years old!)
- “hanging out” with Bobby Slayton and having him refer to me only as “the little jewish boy”

In the mid 80’s I lived in the east bay and once I got my driver’s license, I was able to come to “the City” more often.
-driving out with my friends to see Denny Johnston at the Other and breaking down on the bay bridge only to get a tow truck driver questioning us 16 year olds, the entire way to the club, on whether we have felt how soft Asian women’s skin is!!! CREEPY. The night was rescued by a night of great comedy.
- working a daytime shift at the Other Café during a high school summer and being “instructed” to add MORE garlic to the guacamole. :wink
- Ushering a New Year’s Eve show at the Palace of Fine Arts and doing a little too much underage drinking at the after party and us taking turns puking out the window of the designated drivers car on the way home.
- Ushering the next year’s New Year’s Eve show with some guy named Rob Schneider who kept telling us that “one day that will be ME up there” YEAH RIGHT DUDE!
- And yet another New Year’s Eve show memory when one of the years after Chip Romer got done addressing the audience he gives the mic to the comedian (who it was escapes me at the moment… maybe Tom Kenny) to which the first comment from the comedian is “Hey Chip, I see you let the forehead grow in”. I am not quite sure why I found that line so funny and why it has stayed with me over all these years but I could hardly breathe for 5 min afterwards. I guess at 17, bald jokes were funny. However, now at age 40, they are not as funny as I am right there with my friend Chip.

And then lastly having the privilege of working various jobs in the early 1990’s at Politics & The Other Café in Emeryville, ranging from comedy room attendant, door staff, bar-back, and then finally bartender. I had the honor to work with some great people there. I will always look fondly of my time there despite the “challenges” that existed with the job. I got to know both Chip and Richard as an adult, rather than knowing them just as a kid and I personally grew up a lot while working there. But perhaps my greatest experience there was getting to know Scotty Gelfand. Amazing individual who provided me perhaps the most singularly defining “geek” moment of my youth with an afterhours screening of Star Trek: The Next Generation “Best of Both Worlds” episode Part 1 and 2 (you know, the one with the Borg!) on the giant 15 or so foot screen and incredible sound system in the Politics dance floor.

The Other Café in all its incarnations has provided me with long lasting memories and the opportunity to meet, socialize and work with some incredible people.

I would be remiss not to give a special thanks to Bob Ayres for sharing this amazing thing you helped create. I will always treasure the memories! I love you “brother”!

The first time I saw Bobcat was at The Other. He started with his usual, painful, over-the-top, snot-infested “hey, how ya doin, welcome to the show, whatta ya do for living . . .” greeting and the crowd just didn’t get it. Might of been a heavy 707 night, but a couple of guys started tossing quarters up on the stage. I was practically peeing my pants but was largely alone in my glee.

But this homeless guy walks past the storefront and of course the stage was right there, and he sees a room full of people. He disappears behind the stage and then reappears with a cigarette shoved up each nostril and proceeds to “walk down stairs” from right to left. He disappears below the sill and then reappears walking back up stairs back behind the stage. He does this a couple of times, essentially getting all of the laughs. So Bob runs out and tries to grab him, but he skeedaddles. Bob went on to kill, but it was that homeless guy that warmed the crowd up.

This was a pretty typical night in the early 80’s SF comedy scene. Intimate, talented, and often totally random.

The location of the Other Cafe at the corner of Cole and Carl was a Rexall Drugstore when I was growing up in the late fifties and sixties…Archie comic books and Bazooka Joe bubblegum.

During one of the iterations, I remember a kind of bizarre combined exotic animal (sold illegally for pets) and plant store. The owner was friends with John Lee Hooker and I met the old bluesman during an impromtu late night pot-fueled jam.

Playing the coffee house circuit in the 1970’s as a singer-songwriter, I was thrilled when Bob, Chip and Steve opened the doors of The Other Cafe. At some point an open mike started up and the usual mix of local talent from embarrassingly bad to brilliant got up on the stage and plied their trade. It was almost exclusively musicians in the early days.

So I saunter down on one of these Sunday nights (1980 or so?) only to find the sign-ups exceeded the space available to perform. The MC was Barry Sobel. He was new on the scene and trying out his comedic ’schtick’ in between the musicians. I remember how frustrated I felt as he burned up valuable minutes with what (I perceived of at the time), as lame humor and musicians were eventually being introduced as an after thought, or so it seemed. Other performers never had the chance to take the stage and were turned away.

When I finally complained about this to Bob, he didn’t hesitate: “Think you can do better?” “Actually, yes…”, I replied and was given a chance to MC.

Sunday nights grew in popularity with more and more comedians showing up to the point where they began to outnumber the musicians. The ‘open mike’ nights were divided with music continuing on Sunday nights and the comics performing on Monday nights.

The rest as they say is history.

The Other Cafe gave me my first “gallery show” in ‘77, as my collage art decked their cafe for a month or so. The opening was great fun– drawing lots of neighborhood folks and friends.
I loved the place. It not only had great entertainment, but a wonderful staff. Thanks,guys!