In the last few years, San Francisco has overtaken New York City as America's premier restaurant town, but the city has always had a love affair with eating out.

When San Francisco's population boomed in the 1850s, it became a distinctly hotel-based city. Because the city's housing construction couldn't keep up with its population growth, hotels quickly became the go-to living situation for thousands. And unlike most other American cities at the time, San Franciscans valued living in hotels — and used them as a status symbol. Well-off city dwellers lived in the nicest hotels, eating in their fancy restaurants each evening.