The building on Pier 30 started as Franco’s Lunch in the 1930s, feeding longshoremen and sailors. Tom “Red” McGarvey—a redheaded newsboy who sold papers to dockworkers during the great waterfront strike of 1934—bought it with his brother Mike in 1955 and renamed it Red’s Java House. A massive 1984 pier fire destroyed everything around it; Red’s survived thanks to the Fire Department’s fireboat Phoenix. The menu is not complicated: sourdough burgers (no lettuce, no tomato, those are the rules), hot dogs, fish and chips, and cold beer. The back patio sits over the water with a direct view of the Bay Bridge. Anthony Bourdain called it the place where locals actually go. He was right. The Giants play at Oracle Park a few blocks down the Embarcadero, so come early on game days.
