Julia Roberts Dined on an Outer Sunset Salad

Update: October 25, 2019 11:29 a.m.: This article was updated to include additional details from Outerlands employee Jaime San Felippo.

Julia Roberts lunched at Outerlands on Thursday

The star — who famously said (while as her Notting Hill character) “I’ve been on a diet every day since I was 19,” got a salad, a fellow diner said. This isn’t the first time Roberts has spent time in the Outer Sunset: She spent her 50th birthday in SF back in 2017, and was spotted with her family at the first-ever Irving Street Fish Fest. The third Fish Fest is this Saturday, and Roberts turns 52 on October 28, so perhaps San Francisco is a regular birthday destination for the actor.

Outerlands staffer Jaime San Felippo emails with more information on Roberts’ visit, saying “Yes, it’s true she had a salad, but she also had some tomato soup, a grilled cheese sandwich, a glass of rose and pear crisp for dessert. She also took home a loaf of our bread and some chocolate chip cookies.” Wrote San Felippo, “this is going to sound real trivial, but..I just thought it was important to let you know know that she ate like a real person and not some stereotypical actress on a diet, like your movie quote implied. She was also so gracious and sweet to the waitress, who was basically trying not to lose her shit, lol.” So there it is — as one might have expected, the line spoken by Roberts in a 20-year-old movie doesn’t reflect the actor’s real life food choices today.

Sonoma County chefs took last night off to help area fire victims

Folks like Single Thread’s Kyle Connaughton and Catelli’s Domenica Catelli closed up shop Thursday, opting instead to deliver meals to evacuees who took shelter from the Kincade fire at the Healdsburg Community Center, Bay Area Bites reports. As of this morning, Cal Fire reports that the blaze has covered 21,900 acres of wine country and is five percent contained.

Meet Mama Candy

Hsiu-Mei Wong, aka Mama Candy, has owned Chinatown karaoke dive bar Bow Bow Cocktail Lounge (1155 Grant avenue) for 33 years, a legendary spot once called out as one of the “Worst Bars In America” for exactly the same reasons that it’s actually one of the best. SF Gate recently spent some at the bar, which it says displays the “distress of years of rubbed elbows.” These days, Wong is only at the bar on Fridays and Saturdays, but Bow Bow itself remains open 365 days a year.

Free food and drinks for 49ers faithful

The San Francisco 49ers are sweetening the deal for season tickets with free food and drinks. Season ticket holders will be privy to a so-called “Member Inclusive Menu” that includes offerings from 15 of Levi’s Stadium’s most popular vendors. Booze isn’t part of the package deal, but stadium standbys like fries, nachos, and hot dogs (vegan or beef) are. The Niners operation is the first team in the NFL to offer such a deal, perhaps an effort to ease the sting of a 13 (or so) percent price increase planned for next year.

Is the lack of food in video games a gender thing?

That’s what Soleil Ho, the SF Chronicle’s food critic, is mulling in an essay published on Eater today. It’s an excerpt from Women on Food, an anthology that features work from 115 different folks within the industry. The full book drops on October 29.