John's Grill • 1908

Sam Spade ordered the chops at this 1908 steakhouse, immortalized in Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon and still serving the same grilled lamb chops the detective favored. Two years after the great earthquake razed the city, John's Grill opened downtown and became a fixture of San Francisco's noir mythology. Nightly live jazz fills the vintage dining room where dark wood booths and Hammett memorabilia transport diners to 1920s Union Square.