Franco Montarello, restaurateur behind Little Joe’s, dies at 82

Franco Montarello, the former owner of the noted Little Joe’s restaurants, died at his home in Santa Rosa on March 23.

Mr. Montarello’s restaurants were old-time San Francisco classic of a certain genre, with simple food and plenty of it, developed well before the rise of modern California cuisine.

All of them featured Italian food and always on the menu was a San Francisco-style dish called “Joe’s Special,” which combined eggs, spinach and ground beef.

The various Joe’s restaurants also featured what later became known as “exhibition cooking,” which meant diners at the counter could watch the cooks at work — stirring, frying, mixing, with the gas turned high and flames leaping off the stove.

Mr. Montarello then went into the restaurant business at La Bussala in North Beach and, in 1971, became a partner in Little Joe’s on Columbus Avenue.

The place was very small — only a counter with a few seats — but became so successful he opened a place next door, called Baby Joe’s.

Eventually, Little Joe’s and Baby Joe’s were folded into one restaurant and moved to Broadway, where it was such a success people lined up to get in.

Mr. Montarello adopted the motto for his restaurant: “Rain or shine, there’s always a line.”

[...] when there was a line outside the door, he would go out on the sidewalk and give out free glasses of the house red.

A Chronicle reviewer called Little Joe’s “a classic,” and another called it a “trusted old standby where the food is traditional and familiar, prices are easy and the atmosphere casual and relaxed.”