 My name is Vanessa Garcia. I came to live in America when I was 22 after I graduated from college. I got a student visa because I wanted to further my studies. I eventually settled in the United States and have been here for 23 years now. You do the math. I have two children, a 17-year-old who wants to be a marine and a 19-year-old over here, visa, who dreams of taking over the business someday. I consider myself to be the very fortunate owner and guardian of the Bay Area's last original mile house, the 160-year-old 7-mile house. I want to let you know of what I call my tumbleweed mentality. You see, I believe in being open to anything and everything that presents itself in front of me. And that's how I got to acquire the 7-mile house. It really just fell on my lap one day. The opportunity looked so good I had to take it. Now 14 years of ownership, I never imagined I would be standing in front of you today, talking about an American institution not many people know about. And that really excites me. Why was I invited to speak today? And as Sylvia said, I wrote a book. I wrote a book and it got published this year in January. It's 13 years in the making. And has anybody heard of 7-mile house here? Yes, yes, yes. Excellent, I'm glad. Today we're in a historic family and dog-friendly restaurant, sports bar and live music venue. But in the mid-1800s, we were much different place. Do you have any stories about 7-mile house that anybody want to share by any chance? Any views, opinions? So yeah, we've been in existence for about 160 years now. This photo right here, this photo inspired me to write a book. It was taken in 1904. This was the only piece of history, aside from the building that proved that 7-mile house was indeed historic. I'll come back to this photo in a little, in a small moment. Now, what is a mile house? Does anybody know what a mile house is? All right, well, mile houses in the mid-1800s, were started in the mid-1800s during the gold rush. Mile houses were stagecoach stops that were established back then because it was so tiring to go from San Francisco, from the middle of San Francisco to go anywhere. So the first mile house was established, well, mile zero was established on Plymouth Square. And a lot of people thought that it started in the ferry building, but later on after further research, I found out that it was Plymouth Square. I'm sorry, Portsmouth Square. Portsmouth Square, the oldest part of San Francisco. The start of commerce in the middle. Now, there were mile houses from Portsmouth Square to San Jose. At almost each mile, they were rest stops for people and their horses. They became hotels, saloons, and even brothels. So back in the day, imagine riding a stagecoach that looked like this or a carriage that looked like this on a rocky road, muddy road, and just being really uncomfortable. Do you know that it took, one, nine hours to travel from San Francisco to San Jose on a carriage? It also cost them in today's dollar amounts $600 to $900 just to travel from there to San Jose, from San Francisco to San Jose. So it was definitely a trek. You needed to rest at almost every mile. You needed to go eat, maybe take a shot or whiskey along the way to make you feel better, to make the ride more bearable. So those are mile houses. Seven Mile House. This is an old photo of Seven Mile House. It's the seventh mile from Portsmouth Square. Now, in my research of writing the book, I noticed that there were two Seven Mile Houses, and all along all these 13 years that I owned the business, I thought there was only one. So when I first started the business, I told everyone that we were established in 1853. So I made a mistake of making people know that we were established in 1853 because my preliminary shallow research told me that we were established in 1853. But lo and behold, there was actually another Seven Mile House. And this is because, if you look at the yellow line, this is the original stagecoach route. And this went from Portsmouth Square to Old Mission Road down to El Camino. And this one, the cell mile house here, was established in 1853. And the Abbey House was the one mile house. So it went down from there. So in 1858, there were three entrepreneurs who decided that a shortcut needed to be constructed so that people from San Francisco, going towards the peninsula, would have a faster and a more beautiful route, I guess they say, to go through Portsmouth Square to somewhere in South San Francisco. So they created a shortcut, which is the red lines right here today that is Third Street along Third Street and Bayshore Boulevard. So five years ago, we celebrated our 160th anniversary. And with this research of the book last year, I actually, I felt sick to my stomach as I was doing the research with my cousin, Gina Abuyuan, who is the co-author and editor of this book. And I told Gina, I go, Gina, is this information true? Because this means I've been telling the wrong story for about 13 years now. We celebrate 160th five years ago, where we were on print, TV, radio, and I felt so embarrassed. But you know what the nature of research and history is? You find something new and you update it. You correct yourself, you swallow your pride if you have any. And you just reveal that. And I had to come to terms with the fact that I was wrong. And so fortunately, we were able to celebrate our second 160th anniversary this year. So many of the folks who covered the story made light of it. And said, hey, you know, Seven Mile House is celebrating their 160th again. So with that short cut, I'd like to show you this beautiful hand-drawn map that we found on the sixth floor of the San Francisco main public library here. It's the Sunnyvale Homestead map of 1871. And if you've never been to the sixth floor of the San Francisco public library, it's a beautiful floor. I could not believe what we could see, what we could touch, the valuable information, and the beautiful hand-drawn maps that are there. I highly recommend that you all visit that because it's just such a great resource for the city. And when we were there, we hit the jackpot. We hit this map. And this map is so important to us because it shows that this little tiny thing, close up now, says Tolgate, well, I'll show you that this one says Wall Bridge. That's actually Geneva today. Sorry, I'm nervous, so my hands. And this part is Béchar Boulevard, which used to be called San Bruno Road. So we saw this and we said, oh, my gosh, this just confirms that Seven Mile House started off as a Tolgate and not even a mile house. So we were excited upstairs, jumping for joy, and said we just hit the jackpot because it's a beautiful thing when you discover new things like this. So does anybody know if there are, of any other mile houses that are still up today? Do you know of any? No? Okay. This is a 16-mile house. It's located in Milbray. It opened in 1872 and it remained active in its original location on El Camino Real in Milbray until the early 1970s when they had to move the owner changed and they reopened on Broadway in Milbray in a new location and they now operate as a restaurant and bar. And if you're in the Milbray area, please stop by the 16-mile house. They are also part of our history. Although they had to move at a certain point in the 70s, please do support your local historic spot. And I recommend the Rack of Lam and Escargo. This here is the Five Mile House. Now it's no longer in operation as a bar or restaurant, but the building is still there beautifully painted. It's now apartments. It's on the corner of San Bruno Avenue and Gerard in San Francisco. I have actually spoken to a few past owners of the Five Mile House and I'm now collecting more stories about this place. So hopefully the next book will cover more of the other mile houses. Now going back to this photo, so this photo was the only indication that Seven Mile House was historic. It was placed at the very end of the bar. One day, about two years after I purchased the place, a lady sat at the end of the bar and looked at this photo and she goes, oh my gosh, I have this exact photo at home. It turns out her name's Big Eustie and she married into the owners, the family of the former owners of Seven Mile House and eventually she gave me several photos from her archives and she was a genealogist. And so she gave me all these beautiful stories about the first owners, the first known owners and the people after that and it was just amazing and Sylvia here was asking me, where did you get these photos? And you know what, I answered, it was all luck, really. And when you're open to receiving information from people who want to give it, I think more information will come. So this picture was taken in 1904. The gentleman in all white is a G. D. O. Michelli. He purchased Seven Mile House in 1903. He turned it into a saloon, restaurant and hotel. Palmyro Testa, the gentleman on the right side in the white apron and vest is his brother-in-law. He became the cook and in their off hours they rolled cigars as a pastime. They ended up selling cigars and when business boomed they added a lady's sitting room. This is a photo of Seven Mile House after the Testa family purchased it from the first owner, G. D. O. Michelli. This was taken in 1910 and Palmyro Testa right here bought it when he was 40 years old. With Testa we saw Seven Mile's first history of illegal gambling activities. In 1914, which he ran from the back of Seven Mile House then his license got suspended. In 1917, Testa sold Seven Mile House and eventually put up a macaroni factory in Santa Rosa and then later on the popular Testa cigar company. Testa sold Seven Mile House to Sebastiano, Neri and Lawrence Fragoli. When I had presented at the South San Francisco Library a couple months ago, there was a lady that came to me and she said, I'm so happy you're here. I go, why are you so happy I'm here? And she said, because my father used to own Seven Mile House. And I said, what is your last name? My name is Maria Neri and I hugged her. Why? Because her era was the one I least knew about. And so I said, do me a favor. Look at this photo. Can you tell me if your father is in this photo? Because all I knew about this photo was that it was from the 1940s. I got it off the internet and verified that it was Seven Mile House because of the underneath of the bar and the structure behind it. It is Seven Mile House. And I said, is your father in this photo? She said, yeah. The shorter guy in the left, that's my dad and that's my uncle Larry. And what a revelation. I hugged her. She ended up presenting that day too because she wanted to tell people about her story. She told us that when she was five years old she came behind the bar. She would pick ice for her father. Nobody could see her do that because she was too short to be seen behind the bar. And then she said, I need to know more of your stories. So she sat down and I told her, well, your father, Sebastiano Neri, during prohibition in 1932 was caught by the federal prohibition agents for transporting a 200 gallon whiskey still and 220 gallons of alcohol. And she just laughed. So I told her, your father was a very interesting character. Later on in 1947, Seven Mile House came one of the 77 bars that were charged for not serving food along with alcohol. And in 1948, cops confiscated four illegal slot machines, but both owners denied ownership of these slot machines. We just thought that was really funny that they denied ownership of the slot machines behind them. So in 1953, the next owner came, Lenny Stuler, another character. I was fortunate enough to meet his nephew, Rick Stuler. And he gave me so much interesting stories about Lenny. Lenny was just full of antics. His nephew, Rick, told me that he was the very first person in San Mateo County to get an RUI. Can anybody guess what an RUI is? Yes, riding under the influence, because one day he was drunk and he couldn't start his car. So he went and got his horse and started riding around San Mateo County. He was actually in the news. So if you Google that, you'll find him. Another interesting antic, Uncle Lenny ran Seven Mile House and while he was doing that, he had a really good side business. I'm sure you've seen those claw machines, like in Denny's where you get the stuffed animals and you grab that. Well, back in the day, in the 1950s, apparently the claw machines in bars were different. So it's a big claw machine with different metal statues inside. And if you grab one, if you're able to grab one, you bring it to the bartender because each animal corresponds to a dollar amount. And so you get money in exchange. But Uncle Lenny, he was pretty funny. Nobody ever got the most expensive metal animal because he chained it to the ground. So it was kind of an interesting character. But Uncle Lenny, that's how he was. In 1965, from 1965 to 2004, this lady right here is Camille Stuller. She married Uncle Lenny. And this was her son, Al Flynn. This picture was taken in the 1970s in front of Seven Mile House. Back in the day, around early 1900s to the 80s, the Southern Pacific Rail Yard was very active right across the street from Seven Mile House. Today, it's barren land. But in the 80s, the Rail Yard activities were dying, and the area became more of a manufacturing area, and Seven Mile became more of a trucker bar, a teamster bar. Schlage Lock was there, S.E. Rykov, so a lot of truckers. Camille ran the bar, and she cashed checks. Camille was tough. I was looking at ancestry.com, but I couldn't figure out if she had three or four husbands, but definitely at least three. She's been beaten up by robbers a few times, and she liked alcohol a lot. And her former bartenders fondly tell me that by about 2 p.m. they would urge her to go home. She passed away in 2005, a year after I purchased the place. Owl, on the other hand, was also interesting. He ran an illegal sports betting business, and Seven Mile House was put on the map once again, because we were rated by the FBI in the 80s for illegal gambling activities. Now, when they went to Seven Mile House, they rated it and took $150,000 worth of cash. But apparently, that was just for cashing checks. The money for the legal gambling activities, the $2 million was housed elsewhere, so they didn't get the $2 million. That's according to the bartender that I interviewed. So Owl ran an illegal sports gambling business, and it was the biggest west of the Mississippi. This guy, Ron Sigarsako, was his boss. Has anybody heard of Ron Sigarsako? So this is a screenshot from a 60-minutes interview in 1993. And Ron is the most successful bookmaker in history. He made $100 million a month, or $50 billion a year, and he's from San Francisco. And this is Owl's boss. So you can just imagine the activity in a low-lease bar in Brisbane in the middle of nowhere. Little did you know all this activity was going on. This man, Ron Sigarsako, paved the way to today's online sports betting industry, the legal part of it. So if you Google his name, a lot of people talk about how he really started that sports betting industry. Owl Flynn, right here in the middle, passed away in 2009. This was the day where we exchanged keys. This was Seven Mile House in 2004. This is me. And this is Benny. I like to talk about Benny a lot, because Benny was the bartender for about 30 years. He's 88 years old. He now bartends at the Topper in South San Francisco. Handsome man, still strong, loves his job. I offered him a job, and I told him not to leave. But he always jokes around with me. He tells me I didn't want to hire him, but I told him no, I offered. Anyways, Benny, he's a wonderful guy. He comes to Seven Mile House, and I go visit him at the Topper as well. Now, when I took over, this is what it looked like. We kind of made it a little bit prettier, but it was quite difficult to do that with the, as you can see, surroundings that we have, PG&E yard, car repair shop, and nothing across the street, used to be the Southern Pacific Rail yard. But this place, like I said, fell on my lap. Why did I buy it? Because it looked good. I really didn't have anything to lose. I had a day job, and I said, maybe I'll try it. Maybe we'll open two, three times a week, and we'll see what happens. A lot of people wanted to, so the business was being sold. A lot of people wanted to buy the business, because it was attractive. It's a bar, but nobody liked the lease. The owners of the building and the land are my father-in-law and his partner. And back in the day, they were leasing that place for 30 years, and the only lease they knew was a month-to-month lease. Nobody in their right mind is going to open a bar or restaurant on a month-to-month lease, but that's all they knew. They didn't want to budge. They just said, whoever wants it, well, thankfully they liked me, and so I took it. And I said, oh, let's see. Let's see what happens. So here comes the opportunity. And at that time, in 2004, my mom was separating from my dad, and she was living in the Philippines, and my mom's right there. She was visiting, and I said, Mom, do you... What do you think? You're a great cook. I can go to bartending school. Sounds like a good deal, right? And she goes, I don't think I have a choice, do I? So it was a great opportunity for my mom to start a new life and me to start a new business together with her. And so there we went. With no experience in the restaurant industry, as immigrants from the Philippines, we just did it. And I had a job, a day job. I was still working in an office, and I was very close to my client, and I told her about my business, and this client said, well, what about your kitchen? And I said, well, my mom's working in the kitchen, and so we had five things on the menu. So my mom started cooking, and after a week, I found her crying in the kitchen. And she said, I don't want to do this anymore. Because cooking in... A lot of people cook really well at home, and it's easy for us to think, oh, I can do this in a restaurant. Well, it's a different animal, I tell you. And we only had five things on the menu. So I was talking to my client, and I told her the story, and she said, well, you must meet my father. He's a retired chef, and lo and behold, my luck, former owner of the old clam house. Have you been to the old clam house? Yes? Yes? Found memories in the 80s, perhaps, when the floor was slanted. Yeah, the line was out the door. The bar stools were, you know, horse, what do you call them? Saddles, yes. So you sat on them, too? They were not that comfortable, but they were definitely a lot of characters, added a lot of character to the place. But George Reyes, he owned it in the 1980s, and was very, very successful. And when I got introduced to him, he came to Seven Mile House. He set foot in it and said, this is amazing. This reminds me of the old clam house. Now, mind you, he had already retired at that time when I brought him there. And this gentle soul, generous man, helped me out greatly. So he brought the clam house menu to Seven Mile House, which is why our menus are very similar, so the foundation of our menus, American and Italian. So I asked Uncle George. I said, Uncle George, so how much, you know, how much would you like to charge me? And he said, this amount. And I said, okay, well, let's see, because I don't have customers yet, so he said, okay, well, just pay me what you can. And so that's why I said he's a generous man and I owe him so much. I call him the Godfather of Seven Mile House because, you know, he really laid the foundation for our menu. So that's Uncle George. And, you know, like I said, we're still located in the middle of nowhere. We started the business, me and my mom, with a business plan. We had no curb appeal, no customers, and no experience. Remember the customers you saw earlier? Well, they left. And they followed Benny to the other bar. And so we really were left with nothing. So we did things like house to house, you know, menus in houses in the area. I stood in front of the island where cars were passing because if you know where we are, we're really a destination. You have to plan to come to Seven Mile House because we're not in a mall. We're not in a downtown or like a busy street where people are like, oh, you know, that looks interesting. Let's go in there. No. You have to plan. So just imagine, you know, the internet was kind of still starting, Yelp was still starting. So it was very difficult for us to get into the business. But, you know, my mom and I, we remember those days and it was just still so fulfilling. We would sit with one customer for four hours telling stories, asking questions. And, you know, at the end of the day, we go home and we say, this is such a fulfilling job because we get to meet so many people. We find out more about American culture. And then we go home and we're just so happy. Even if we just earned $300 for that day and minus expenses is probably a dollar. But we were just so happy. You know, it was so simple. But, you know, we chugged along. And so, like I said, this is what we looked like. So my, the book really is a story of, a story of bar ownership. Bar ownership and later on, well, I thought at first, when I first started wanting to write the book, I thought it was just going to be about stories from customers. Customers that would tell me, oh, yeah, there used to be a fight. There, somebody was killed there. You know, the brawl here, you know, and everything. I thought those are the kinds of stories that I was going to get. But fortunately, I stumbled upon many deeper stories. And in the book, I talk about this man. Can you tell me what's interesting about his photo? The tattoo. Yes. Years ago, there was a lady who told me, Vanessa, come here, meet Ron. Come meet Ron. I said, why? He goes, look at his arm. He has a tattoo of seven mile house. And I said, wow, you like us that much? And he said, no, it's not you. Well, he started telling me about this story. The story of himself. When he was nine years old in 1967, his father had a day job, but he needed a second job in order to support his family. So he started, the father started bartending at seven mile house. So for two years, Ron and his brother would walk from school to seven mile house, sit at the end of the bar, and watch their father. That was quality time for them. And he talks about his father. When he did, it made me cry. He said that those two years were so instrumental in his life because he watched his father do such a great job, be great at his craft, be such a gentleman. And he learned so much in those two years. And he said, in his words, those two years watching his father made him the man that he is today. And immediately I thought, I sure hope my kids talk about me that way. And so it was just a beautiful story. And him and his brothers still come to this day. And when they do, they sit at a corner and they talk about their father. Another interesting story of Lucille Stone. She came to seven mile house on a date. And she was on a date and a gentleman spilled a drink on her. And she was like, oh my God, I need to go to her bathroom. I need to clean myself up. And it turns out the guy was waiting outside for her, wanted to say sorry. And they ended up going outside talking for hours. And she said she's not a talker. They talked for hours, sat on this log outside seven mile that's still outside seven mile. And this was in 1965. And he became her husband. Two years ago, her husband passed away. And she came to seven mile house to honor that memory. And that's when I met her. And they were married, it was at 50 years. And it's a real honor for her to be in my book. So it's a beautiful person and beautiful family that we met. Seven mile house is also a story of diversity and inclusion. These two ladies here, Olga and Dolores, they moved from Texas in 1957. All 14 of them rode the train, the Southern Pacific, rode the train because they wanted to escape discrimination. And so when they came to the Bay Area, they got settled. And these ladies started hanging out at seven mile house and they were very comfortable. They said it was always all colors. They danced. They said the jukebox was always playing. And back in those days, people would just go on cars or ride in somebody else's car and go to another club. But Olga here actually met her husband at seven mile house as well. So her story is in the book. And lastly, Paul Pete. Paul Pete fled from Louisiana after the Ku Klux Klan cut his grandfather's arms off. Now 78, he started coming to Seven Mile House when he was 17. That's in the 1950s. He was working for Consolidated Chemicals, then S&W Foods, which is now seized candies. And he also talks about the diversity at Seven Mile House. I did talk to other interviewees who talked about how there was so much discrimination in San Francisco during that time. But it was just so interesting to know that at Seven Mile House all this inclusion was going on. Now, this is the book, See You at the Seven. Stories from the Bay Area's last original mile house. Stories about bar ownership. We are all humbly bootstrapped, mostly immigrants, all family owned. And in this book, I sprinkle in a lot of personal insights about the struggles of starting a business, my views of what the former owners did, illegal or legal. But, you know, it's been a fabulous ride 14 years later. This is what Seven Mile House looks like now. So would you rather go to this or this? Thankfully, the city of Brisbane got a grant to put a sidewalk out and immediately I saw the opportunity to beautify the outside, put an area for seating outside, and also we eventually became dog friendly. This is what we look like inside. Basically, it still looks the same as before. We just shined it up. I really don't want to change much about the building because it is historic as much as possible. I'd rather just keep it as is. Today, we are a live music venue. We have live music every night. Sunday, Monday, Tuesdays, we have jazz. Wednesdays, we have Latin. Thursdays, we have blues. Fridays, R&B, and Saturdays is always different. We're also kid friendly. We have a kid's menu. We're also dog friendly, serving dog menu with dog beer and cigars. And I am very pleased to announce that we won quite a diverse number of awards by SF Weekly. And last year, we won a few awards as well. So imagining what we used to be back in the day with no customers sometimes, I stand in the middle of the room and you'll just see me smile and kind of tear up because all this effort that me and my mom and my family has done towards the success of Seven Mile House, the years of not seeing my children has finally paid off. And today, I stand in front of you with a book, with many stories that I can communicate. And to this day, I still am able to speak with many people just like Marie Annieri, who have stories. In fact, this week, somebody came to me and said, my father used to own Seven Mile House. His name's George Robert. And I said, there's only one person who mentioned that name and I couldn't find any more information. So the story lives on and the book will still be updated. And hopefully, I won't have to change the years any longer. But I think we're pretty solid at this point. But my message to you really also today is there's so much change these days with gentrification, the sale of properties. And you know, that's a natural thing to happen. But at least I urge you, if you have that favorite old restaurant or bar, please support it because you never know one day they might not be there anymore. If you know the owner, tell them, write the stories, collect them because you want those stories to live. You don't want to lose them. And so my commitment to my patrons at Seven Mile House and to the community is I will always collect these stories as much as I can, as long as I can. And you know, the sale of the book 100% goes to the restoration and preservation of the building. And so it does go to a good cause. And it's near and dear to my heart, to my family's heart and also to our community because we are very close to our community as well. Thank you again for being with me here today. And I would like to do a Q&A if that's possible. But until then, see you at the seven. Thank you.