There are a few generally agreed - upon qualification someone must have to be “ Bartender of the Year ” – that mortal has to be good with people , always innovating , passionate about what they do , and incredibly knowledgeable about spirits . The bartender should be serious-minded , conceptual , creative , and most of all , they ’d better make craveable cocktails that taste really damn well . It also does n’t spite if they ’ve had to subdue some adversity along the agency , but still managed to garner a loyal chase of patrons who conform to them anywhere they go .
No one better embody those qualities than Kevin Diedrich , general coach and collaborator at the recently openedPacific Cocktail Havenin Union Square . Which is why it only make sense that he take this yr ’s honor .
From computers to cocktails
Even if you ’ve been lucky enough to tope Kevin Diedrich ’s originative cocktails atBurritt Room + Tavern , Jasper ’s Corner Tap & Kitchen , the unawares - live BDK , or his current home , Pacific Cocktail Haven , and converse with the man behind the bar , you in all probability do n’t know that he started his career working in IT in Washington , D.C. But he detest the post setting . " Every day was spend staring at a electronic computer screen for hours on end judge to trouble-shoot software package and ironware . There was no natural action , no get-up-and-go , " he said .
favorable for all of us , Kevin ’s best friend and roommate at that time was a disk jockey . And his girlfriend was a barkeeper . Which mean Kevin spend a caboodle of time fit out at night . It did n’t take him long to realize that the night life scene was a lot more fulfilling than troubleshoot why someone put their mention card into the floppy disk drive . So Kevin quit his business and paid $ 500 to attend a local bartending school . He had no mind it was going to be a career but , at the very least , it would be an flight from a job he no longer like .
“ I come out of there and was like , ‘ I ’m decease to be a bartender , ’ but no one would hire me because I had zero experience , ” he say .
Kevin Diedrich of Pacific Cocktail Haven|Allison Webber
Kevin was turn down for occupation after job . At one compass point , he thought maybe he had a shot to get a caper at The Cheesecake Factory . He pray them for a luck , but they told him they were high - paced , high - book , and just did n’t think he ’d have the skills to handle the job .
finally , Kevin inveigle his girlfriend ’s manager to permit him work out behind the ginmill one dark and once the manager saw his skills , he told Kevin to go ahead and tell any future employers he ’d been cultivate there for five or six years .
“ So I pretty much lied on my resume and that ’s how I mother my first bartending job at the Ritz - Carlton . ” That piffling prevarication paid off large - time .
Allison Webber
Serving up skills at the Ritz
shape Clarence Shepard Day Jr. fracture at the Ritz taught Kevin refinement and hospitality attainment , while the fast - paced cocktail slinging was a acquisition he honed on the weekends at cabaret . A few days by and by , the Ritz became more interested in the burgeoning wiliness cocktail view . Kevin was onboard , but did n’t have it off anything about it , so he did the only thing he screw to do . He boughtSauce Guide to Cocktailsby Simon Difford and learned as much as he could .
“ I was reading about all of the ingredients , ” Kevin said , “ and I did n’t know what they were , and no one in DC knew either . I wanted to know how I could get them and what they tasted like , so I commence asking friends in other cities . And that ’s when my onetime barkeeper who was in San Francisco asked me if I wanted to total out . ”
The Ritz - Carlton relocate Kevin in 2006/07 . “ And that , ” he says , “ was the commencement for me . ”
Allison Webber
The hotel business proves difficult
Not long after his move to San Francisco , Kevin interviewed with Todd Smith at the newly openedBourbon & Branch . “ I went in and posture at the saloon for one night and he made me cocktails and they were awesome . I told him this was exactly what I wanted to do . ” He got the chore .
After Bourbon & Branch , Kevin continued to hone his accomplishment atCaskand Michael Mina’sClock Barbefore returning to DC to openBourbon Steak(and , more significantly : to at last convert the woman who is now his wife to go out with him ) . Kevin came back to SF in 2010 to help concept and build out Burritt Room , a hotel taproom in the ( then- ) Crescent Hotel .
“ I have a Brobdingnagian soft office for hotels and hotel bars , ” Kevin read . “ So it ’s always been a pipe dream of mine to do a Graeco-Roman hotel bar . ” Unfortunately for Kevin , the management groups at the hotel bars where he work kept changing – three metre in total .
Then , when the Crescent was purchase by Charlie Palmer , he moved toJasper ’s Corner Tapin the Serrano Hotel . After the hotel that owned Jasper ’s also switched management companies , Kevin was scooped up by Kimpton . A few years later , he thought he ’d finally found a home at Union Square’sBDK Restaurantlocated in the Hotel Monaco , but after just a few months , that hotel and restaurant also underwent a direction variety and , once again , Kevin was on the out .
Driving PCH
Even in face of such dashing hopes though , Kevin said he tried to remain positive and passionate about his craft . But he could n’t help but start to wonder if perhaps San Francisco just was n’t for him . “ After we lost BDK , I was helping ally around the metropolis and trying to figure out what my next step was . ” He and his married woman were about two months out from moving to Hawaii when he bring a call from Sidecar Hospitality ( Press Club , Schroeder ’s ) co - founding father Andy Chun about a trivial bar in Union Square called Cantina , where Kevin and his hotdog Kona liked to hang out .
Andy had recently bought Cantina and take if Kevin would be interested in manage it . Kevin was definitely interested , but added , “ I do n’t desire to manage a bar any longer ; my next footstep is owning something . ” So he , Andy , and his married person Jan Wiginton sketch out a visual sense for Cantina as cobalt - possessor .
But there was n’t a lot of money to do anything , which is how Kevin get along up with the idea torun Cantina as a pop - up for a few calendar month .
“ It was a good way to get the old regular back in the bar while make some money , ” he explain . “ I ’d probably never do it that way again though – run and renovate at the same time . It was a severe four or five months , waking up at four or five in the morning , present until twelve noon , and then clean house everything and hatchway at 5 pm . It was like that seven days a week for calendar month . ”
The difficult work yield off ; whenPacific Cocktail Haven finally openedunder its fresh name , it did so with zero debt and a very firm patronage who ’d watched the entire transformation . The neck of the woods cocktail bar was instantly popular with locals and tourists alike .
“ My bartending and cocktail style is elevated ; it ’s hard for me to dumb down the thing I do in terms of cocktail presentation and garnish , so I wanted to have all of that , but also have a neighborhood bar with an unostentatious posture , ” he said . “ People can come in and be friends with the bartenders and regulars , but also have an amazing experience with the ambience , glasswork , ice , and cocktails , but without being too opulent or close . ”
Pouring all over town
Kevin is also doing great things at the fresh renovated and reopened Elite Café on Fillmore St in Lower Pac Heights . As part of his partnership with Sidecar Hospitality , Kevin created the bar platform for the New Orleans - style restaurant .
“ I feel like in San Francisco , you ca n’t get forth with having a restaurant without a Browning automatic rifle , and we wanted the Elite Café to be a very bar - forward eating place , ” he articulate . “ I put some classic cocktails on the menu that keep with the kernel of the space , but also add some newfangled cocktails that will help elevate the neighborhood . ”
Thanks to this bar programme , the Elite Café is no longer just a place to go for brunch or when you have a hankering for Meetinghouse Biscuits ; it ’s now a name and address for an after - work or former - night cocktail . You ’ll find French 75s made with Cognac , a Frozen Hurricane , and , of course , the classical Sazerac .
Kevin ’s constantly coming up with novel estimate for cocktail , but he is currently ghost with brandy and sake . He decrease in love with Calvados , Cognac , and brandy after visiting France , and got excited about interest after savor more than 300 at an upshot last year .
“ It ’s so delicate , but there are so many tang , nuances , and styles . So I started immix brandy and sake together and one of my new favorite cocktail on the PCH menu is Pootie Tang , which is pineapple plant - infused Cognac , sake , a little Kalani coconut liqueur , and bitter , ” he said . “ It ’s this nice , delicate , boozy - advancing cocktail , but because of the sake , it does n’t have that bite that some spirit - forward cocktails do . ”
Those originative cocktails have realize Kevin quite a following , and are the reason he was named one ofSan Francisco Chronicle ’s “ Bar Stars ” in 2011 . The the great unwashed of San Francisco love his crapulence , and Kevin loves to make them . What ’s not to get laid ?
“ We ’re very lucky to be in business sector in this urban center . It ’s a city full of distinguish eaters and juicer and the great unwashed who go out for cocktails . In 2005 - 06 , it was a fight to get people to say cocktail off of your computer menu ; they were coming in and drink vodka sodium carbonate and Cosmos , ” Kevin say . “ But now the food is astonishing , the produce is amazing … And that ’s what I love about this city . The tides have turn . We ’re blessed and very lucky to have the clientele we have . ”
And we ’re very lucky that Kevin Diedrich has finally bump a bar he can call his own .
Pacific Cocktail Haven is unresolved from 5 pm to close Monday through Saturday . It ’s worth getting there on the early side , so you may say hi to Kevin ’s adorable frankfurter Kona .
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