The morning in San Francisco is fresh and sunny. I’m feeling good. I’m in the neighborhood of Geary near the ocean and everything feels just right.
   
I enter the restaurant and Mexican music is playing and the smell of cooking food is mixing with the odor of cleaning products being used. The restaurant is still closed and is being made ready for opening. I say hello to the staff in English, then realize I might be able to impress them if I speak Spanish, so I switch. The guy prepping the bar is tolerant of my Spanish and tells me Julio in not there.

I look around and notice that everything not to do with food has to do with tequila. At the bar, there are bottles of rare and expensive tequilas, as well as on shelves around and in a glass display case that separates the bar from one of the dining rooms. In the dining rooms there are images of tequila and certificates of recognition from tequila companies and tequila organizations on the walls. This is Tequila Central, what Julio and others refer to as a ‘mecca’. This place is unique. I am feeling even better. I am feeling relaxed, at home, no pretense, no fluff here. Only the sense of a big heart beating to the “beat” of pride. This is Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant and Tequila Bar.
   
I go back outside to look around. This area has a real neighborhood feel to it. This part of San Francisco is called the Richmond and is a mix of Anglo, Chinese, and Russian. Wild! The atmosphere is diverse and interesting. Some of it feels old-fashioned, like Tommy’s, which has been here since 1965, and has weathered economic cycles , fads and social revolutions.
   
In the corner shop three doors down the block, I see tequila bottles in the window. It is a pastry shop. I look inside and on the shelves behind the bakery counter are more bottles of tequila.
   
Later I ask Julio about this. He tells me that the neighbors used to go through Tommy’s trash and pull the bottles out to keep. When Julio realized this, he offered them more. They especially like the blue ones.

Tommy’s has had an impact on the whole neighborhood. On the other corner is a liquor store which has a great selection of tequilas due to the tequila mecca close by. Another liquor store in the next block is the same.

Julio arrives in a black pick-up truck filled with produce. He goes to the market daily to assure getting the highest quality products. That’s what Tommy’s is all about, quality and pride in what they do.

This is a family run restaurant. It was started by Tomas and Elmy Bermejo, Julio’s parents. All five of their kids have worked there and three still do. Originally it was “Hofbrau” style cuisine with Mexican food on the side. The original restaurant had a giant painting on its façade of a roast beef on a plate and enchiladas on another plate. Little by little, more and more Mexican food was added, and now it’s totally Mexican with its Yucatan specialty. Since 1965, the whole image of Mexican culture, food, drink, music, and people has changed radically in California.

Today the menu is totally Mexican with a specialization in Yucatecan dishes, which fits Tomas and Elmy’s background, as they came from the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. All the favorites are there as well: tacos, enchiladas, burritos, chiles rellenos, and fajitas. Everything is made in-house, nothing pre-made or mass made.

Tommy’s is the business and legacy of Julio’s father. Since Julio has joined, sales have gone up and he feels good about that. It is their family’s business and he has done his part. Still Julio wants to make his own legacy for himself. I have the feeling Julio can do pretty much anything he wants to when he sets his heart to it. I’ve seen it done.

Julio and I sit down in a quiet dining room to talk, the Mexican music creating the background. I ask Julio. “What is Tommy’s, what sets it apart?” Julio explains that on one of their t-shirts are the words “Tommy’s is your neighborhood mom and pop, global tequila mecca.” And it’s so: Mom and Pop are present and acclaim has come internationally.

Julio goes on, “Tommy’s is a restaurant that focuses on only 100% agave tequila.” They were the first in the United States to put a super premium 100% agave tequila in the well (as a house pour) on a volume basis. In the bar there are only 100% agave tequilas on display. There are other spirits such as vodka and rum but these need to be requested.

Julio mentions that when you walk into Tommy’s you are hit by the smell of fresh limes. They use 4-5 thousand pounds of Persian limes per week, which are specially prepared with the nibs cut off to reduce the oil and to make the squeezing more efficient. This attention to detail is to get the best possible product, in this case their margarita.

In the late 1980s, Julio had a great stock of tequilas relative to other bars. He realized that to move his products he needed to do something more. For this reason he developed his Blue Agave Club. People who join the club get a tequila education and special offers. It has worked. He has over 6,000 members and sells liters of high quality tequila weekly.    

Julio looks around and asks himself, “What sets it apart?” and I say “It is real, there is a huge heart here, the heart of the Bermejo family.” He looks at the décor which relates to tequila and Mexico and says, “Tommy’s is highly appreciated by people in the drinks industry, lots of vintners, brewers and distillers from other categories (bourbon, scotch), as well as tequilas.”

Julio is full of ideas. He wants to make San Francisco a sister city to Arandas, Jalisco. Arandas is in the highlands part of tequila-producing country. Julio feels that Tommy’s has done a lot to promote Mexico and its products and wants the sister city idea to promote friendship. Tequila and friendship. There are a lot worse things than that to promote.
Julio wants to have a generous cocktail list but realizes that his specialty, the margarita, is so important that that’s what he wants to concentrate on. During the last agave glut Julio started to use agave syrup in the margies instead of simple sugar syrup and triple sec.

Tommy’s mission statement for its margaritas is to give a drink that accentuates the taste of the tequila used and the taste of the fresh hand squeezed Persian lime juice. This is balanced together by the agave syrup. Julio admits his margarita is not classic but says that at the end of the day the resulting taste is right. The lines out the door affirm this fact.

I mention that his margies have a positive health aspect also. Good quality tequila is the only alcohol in the drink and therefore produces “no hangover” drinks. Julio admits that last night he wishes he had only drunk tequila. He feels rough. “What did you drink?” I ask.

“Champagne, red and white wine, Scotch whiskey, Scotch liqueur, beer, margarita, and ended with shots of tequila.” I feel for him. I’ve been there with him and without him.

Julio goes on to explain that he went from serving straight tequila from a shot glass to snifter to scotch whiskey tasting glass to their current glass, an NAO tasting glass that resembles a study sherry glass. This glass tells the customer that the tequila is not to be shot down quickly, that it is to be respected and enjoyed.

Tommy’s customer base is made up of people from all walks of life. No reservations are taken. The ambience is lively and friendly (not pretentious), homey, personal. The staff, as well as the family, are from the Yucatan. People refer to the location as being “in the sticks.” Despite this it is highly successful.

Mexican music is playing. A waiter greets the customers he knows in Spanish. This is the past and future of California, Mexican culture. A guy comes into the bar at 3:00 p.m. or so. Julio asks him straight out, “How tall are you, again?” I guess Julio knew at one time and wants to know again; just as likely this is Julio’s way of connecting or reconnecting to this customer. “Six nine,” is the reply.

Julio wants to tell the guy about the winner of the Maverick Surf Contest that was held the day before in Half Moon Bay, just south of San Francisco. Julio shows us what he has written behind the bar on his announcement board. He has written congratulations to the winner who is a customer of Tommy’s and friend of Julio’s. Julio has the front page news with a photo of the winner on a 50-foot wave taped up between the board and the TV, which is tuned to a Spanish-speaking channel. The hostess of the show has ample breasts swelling out of her low-cut dress and the screen. The all male customers probably didn’t much notice the newspaper or the announcement next to it.

Julio knows, or if given two seconds will know, everyone around him. He makes a point of connecting with customers, neighbors, relations of all types.  Julio makes kin of everyone. This is neighborhood, this is community, this is Tommy’s.
I speak to two locals, two regulars of Tommy’s, about what the place means to them. Both are there today for the tequila festival planning meeting. Michael, who is in the wine trade, says he likes that he can go there with or without his wife (who is also in the wine trade; remember Julio saying that people in the trade love the place). He can have solitude there or meet tons of people. It seems to him that he legitimizes his time spent there since he learns so much about tequila.

Kern says that in some very real essence, Tommy’s is a central part of his life. It is a whole lifestyle for him. He feels a part of the family, the Bermejo family, and has a sense of belonging. He loves the camaraderie with other customers, the staff and the family. He points out that it is noteworthy that the Bermejo family will not let “bad persons” work there nor are “bad”” customers allowed to stay. This makes for a high-class experience for him.

Kern jokes that Tommy’s is his living room and says that there is truth to that. Michael agrees and loves Tommy’s equally if it is empty and he watches TV (ah, the breasts of the announcer) on his own or if the place is filled with all his dear friends, tequila drinking friends. Julio introduces all the people at the bar he knows to one another. He is the glue that holds together the mood, the ambience, the charge.

I find Kern especially expressive. He says that Julio is a tequila evangelist with no sense of self-preservation. Well said! Kern admits that he has 15 cases of tequila in his closet. When asked why, he replies that he likes to have a lot of high quality tequila around and feels that if he has enough it will last him and he won’t run out. Kern ages his own tequila in wooden barrels and is experimenting with putting freshly squeezed grapefruit juice in little kegs to conserve it and give it carbonation. This he uses to make a tequila mixed drink called the Paloma.

I finish my visit with a little tasting of some of Julio’s tequilas and leave him in his whirlwind domain, his home. I go to the corner on my way to my car. I pass the pastry shop and see they are selling the newspaper which features the Maverick Surf Contest on its front page. I walk by, I think about buying the newspaper and return. I enter the shop and see that there are at least 20 empty bottles of tequila on the shelf as décor.

The Chinese owner sees I have a case of tequila with me and is curious. She wants to talk. She is proud of her display of tequila bottles. Does she actually like them herself or does she believe that they will somehow be good for her business, being so close to the tequila mecca three doors down? I tell her I’m coming from Tommy’s to explain my case of tequila. She tells me she has known Julio in the neighborhood since he was in grade school and shows me with her hand how tall he was then.  She says that he is a good business man.

I nod, yeah, that he is.

I go back out in the fresh, sunny air feeling even better than before. Yeah, that he is, he’s a good man with a good business.