Page 246 - Steven News Today

Had been developing over time. very, very different from panisse. >> jeremiah: it reminds me of the first house i ever walked into in merida. well, this will be my sixth house, i think. and you can see it right away, exactly what you would do, because its just telling you what to do. do a couple of renderings, put it on the market. >> john: at some point during the early 80s, jeremiah decided he wanted to open a restaurant in san francisco. and locating it in the civic center surprised me becaus...

>> ken: you could see everybody from everywhere. you could see every seat from every seat. >> john: the different elevation in dining areas. it was like a stage. >> martha: high ceilings, white walls, um, bright light, very glamorous. >> mario: 100 yards away, you could smell the magnificent fragrance of the wood-burning stove and the wood-burning pizza oven. >> steven: and you just went, "im going to have a great time now." >> mario: stars was a theatrical experience. stars was at once the symp...

>> james: you know the ocean liners, you always had first class and cabin class. the thing about stars, it was just like that. >> tony: the socialites could look around and go, "oh look at, im mingling with regular people." and these edgy people could go, "oh look, im as comfortable in this environment as anybody else is." >> anthony: it mattered who else was there, what might be happening, what might happen. the restaurant as seen. >> mario: whereas the restaurants of the 50s and 60s, the bar w...

>> mark: he was the guy who built the restaurant. i dont know where he got the money. and then sat in the back and threw his two cents out constantly. jeremiah hated that. >> steven: at some point in time, someone mustve talked sense into them about, this isnt doing anyone any good. lawsuits are heard flying around everywhere. and finally, they agreed they would do, uh, basically an auction. jeremiah won. he out poker-handed him. so he had stars all to himself with a very big, large loan to pay ...

>> alexandra: too many new locations at the same time, so too many, too much, too soon, too fast. >> ken: i remember there was a stars palo alto and there was a stars cafe, and then he opened another building down the street. and then he was all over asia. and -- >> jerry: i honestly expected to see a ferris wheel on the corner, you know, jeremiah-land. >> ken: he was opening all these stars everywhere, you know, while the original stars was probably kind of falling apart while he was on a plane...

>> tony: people would pull up and itd be kind of a neighborhood where you would second guess yourself walking down the street. youd pull up to these doors that had beautiful brass handles, star on them. you couldnt see into the restaurant, but you walked up this stairway and the dining room would be revealed to you with each step you took. people were transported from this kind of dirty, dusty alley up to this incredible dining room that just seemed like you were on another planet all of a sudde...

Of the restaurant. >> jeremiah: a light gray outside, a damp, watery light. it is the opposite of willpower, how pasty the day is. the horror of mediocrity. anything better than falling into an abyss of slop. running a restaurant is difficult enough without people getting in your way. >> steve: jeremiahs partner at stars was doyle moon. he had a bit of a hostile streak in him, i think. >> sharon: the guy was a son of a bitch. im sorry. he just was. a cowboy, tough, too rich, and he didnt respect...

>> gregg: he never could share the tough experiences, the hardest things in his life. he had been taught to be self-reliant when it came to the sadness in his life. the one moment that id stopped hearing from jeremiah was the end, when things began to crumble for him. >> steven: when the aids epidemic started and we all had a lot of friends and a lot of people that we lost to aids, and it was really scary because no one knew what was going on except for these people were dying and people that we...

Probably was stars. >> michael: stars, i think, was the embodiment of a vision that had been developing over time. very, very different from panisse. >> jeremiah: it reminds me of the first house i ever walked into in merida. well, this will be my sixth house, i think. and you can see it right away, exactly what you would do, because its just telling you what to do. do a couple of renderings, put it on the market. >> john: at some point during the early 80s, jeremiah decided he wanted to open a ...

>> tony: people would pull up and itd be kind of a neighborhood where you would second guess yourself walking down the street. youd pull up to these doors that had beautiful brass handles, star on them. you couldnt see into the restaurant, but you walked up this stairway and the dining room would be revealed to you with each step you took. people were transported from this kind of dirty, dusty alley up to this incredible dining room that just seemed like you were on another planet all of a sudde...