166-year-old Tadich Grill scorned for owner's alleged racism

Elizabeth Weise | USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO — A storied San Francisco restaurant is getting Yelp-bombed after reports broke that the former owner has shunned his white daughter for 32 years because she married an African-American man.

The Tadich Grill opened in 1849 and has been a favorite of generations of San Francisco’s movers and shakers as well as movie stars and politicians nationwide.

Long beloved, the restaurant is now being vilified online after the Washington Post published a story detailing the decades-long rift between former owner Steve Buich and his daughter over her choice of husband.

According to Terry Upshaw, her family ostracized her when she told them in 1983 she was in love with Oakland Raiders offensive linesman Gene Upshaw, the Post reported. At 23 she moved with him to Washington D.C..

Gene became executive director of the NFL Players Association and was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1987.

Upshaw said her father told her to change her last name and never call them again, the Post reported.

The couple were happily married for years and lived in northern Virginia where they raised their two sons. Gene died in 2008 of pancreatic cancer.

The grandparents have never met their grandsons, despite Upshaw's efforts to heal the rift, she told the San Francisco Chronicle.

The restaurant's publicist did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday and waiters in the restaurant offered no comment when a reporter visited.

On Thursday, Sam Singer, a publicist hired by the company, said that Buich had sold the restaurant to his son Michael when he retired in 1994 and no longer has any financial interest in it.

In an email sent to the San Francisco Chronicle Wednesday afternoon, Buich said the issue was not that his son-in-law was black.

“This has never been a matter of race, but rather the sanctity of marriage and personal judgment of character. Simply because a dispute involves people of different races does not mean that the dispute is racial in nature,” the email said.

Upshaw never publicly brought up the issue of her estrangement from her family, until this week.

The Tadich Grill opened a Washington D.C. outpost last month and a reporter at the Post reached out to her. For the first time, she told her story to the press.

Efforts by USA TODAY to reach Upshaw for comment were unsuccessful.

On Wednesday, few of the parties going in to eat lunch at the San Francisco restaurant were willing to speak to a reporter. One that was had been dining there since long before Upshaw was born.

"We started coming in the 1950s," said Carol Underhill of Fresno, who has been coming back for decades for the Grill's famous Crab Louie.

She and her husband had seen something in the paper that morning about the issue but said it's always hard to know what's really going on in a family.

"The food and the service here have always been outstanding. I don't know if the ownership has changed since then," the retired community college teacher said.

The Tadich Grill's Yelp review page quickly filled with posts expressing outrage, sadness and disgust at the owners' stance.

Alex A. posted Tuesday, "If you're dining here, you're supporting a racist family that disowned their daughter for marrying a black man. Eat somewhere else."

Cliff K wrote, "Rarely can you do something concrete to combat such a pervasive and complicated problem as racism, but one thing you definitely can do is refuse to line the pockets of people who so hate blacks that they'll disavow a daughter for 30 years because she married a black man beloved by everyone who knew him."

Many suggested the restaurant, despite being the oldest in California, won't survive the allegations.

"There is no PR statement, press release, or anything they can say publicly that will keep this long-standing restaurant in business for much longer. The owners are racists and disowned their daughter for marrying an African-American who was intelligent, successful, and loved her unconditionally. It is disgusting that this has just gotten out, and I hope these servers, bartenders start finding new jobs quickly," Sal M. wrote Tuesday.

Others wondered if the attitudes of owner Steve Buich bled over into the service.

Scott E. posted Tuesday that at a recent lunch there with his girlfriend it felt as if they were somewhat ignored and the service was slow.

"Now I understand that us being the bi-racial couple we are was the reason for the service being the way it was. I was willing to give the place a second chance, no way I will now. This might be the one time I would welcome a long-time San Francisco business closing down and a condo occupying its place," he wrote.

So many negative reviews poured onto the restaurant's Yelp review site that it began removing "reviews that appear to be motivated more by the news coverage itself than by the reviewer’s own customer experience with the business," it posted on the restaurant's review page.

Yelp noted that it applies this policy "even if that means removing points of view we might agree with."