How Rosamunde Sausage Grill led me to love, pain, and cocaine

A love letter to San Francisco Sausage & Beer. How Rosamunde Sausage Grill led me to love, pain, and cocaine.

At the end of November, Rosamunde will be closing its location at Mission and 24th Streets, where they have been proudly serving our sausages and craft beer since 2010.

Nearly 20 years ago I ate my first Rosamunde sausage in the Lower Haight, as I drank next door at Toronado, and nursed a hangover.   Since that day I’ve eaten their housemade, locally sourced bratwursts, smoked hungarians, thuringers, and even their chicken habaneros pretty regularly.  Unless of course it was a Tuesday, because that meant cheeseburgers were on the menu.

Every February, during SF Beer Week I’d end up at at least one of the Rosamunde locations, their Mission location always had a savage beer list, one year when Pliny the Younger was all the rage, a friend of mine got a tip that a secret Pliny keg would be at Rosamunde on MLK day.

We showed up early expecting an obscene line because in those days some people would wait 8 hours just to get a sniff of Pliny, people would literally fly into San Francisco just to try it.  But we surprisingly found Rosamunde nearly empty.  The equally shocked staff served us 10oz glasses of the liquid gold, and apologetically told us “only one per customer, yeah sorry, we need to let everyone get a taste”.

But after nearly an hour passed, only a dozen or so people had shown up, the secret keg, had somehow remained secret. We began texting friends the good news. Once the staff realized no crowd was coming, they began pouring at will, and the dozen of us strangers drank the most coveted brew in all the land, to our satisfaction.

Pliney the Younger is famous for being very strong, and very easy to drink. It’s Russian River Brewing’s masterpiece of a very limited, small batch, Triple West Coast IPA, and we drank it like it was the last keg of it in the world, because for that year at least, it was.

Flash forward a few hours, and we were best friends with everyone in the bar.  The laughter, loud cheers, and back-slapping, eventually turned into close talking and quiet flirting.  A tall, dance major from San Diego began gazing lovingly into my eyes, as if Pliny the Elder himself had put us under a natural spell.  We began playing footsie under the picnic table like love-stoned teenagers until she took my hand and whisked me away to Blondie’s Bar.

Blondies is an SF classic famous for its very generous and strong, cocktails.

Inside Blondies the dancefloor was crackin’, and my newfound love was making a show of it, she spun, leg-kicked and Dougied like she was starring in a movie, and everyone in the club seemed to stop and watch.  After day-drinking and trying to keep up with Nelly Furtado on the dance floor for 20 minutes, I needed a breather, and a pop.

We bellied up to the bar where three immaculately dressed men began hitting on me and my date, in one of those curious San Francisco scenarios, when you’re not quite sure where anyone’s sexual orientation lies.  He leaned in and asked me, “You party right?”

“Uh, yeah man, I’m cool?” I answered.  And with that, we went to the men’s room where he pulled a small mirror out of his lapel, and poured out four lines of ivory white powder. “Let’s get it,” he intimated.

In those days, I was no spring chicken, I’d survived the 2000’s rave scene, and even danced my way through a sunrise set at Burning Man or two, but to this day, nothing quite hit me like those bathroom lines.

I kicked open the men’s room door like I was Iceberg Slim, infused with dangerous amounts of artificial confidence and chesty bravado, I surveyed the dancefloor for my paramour, and there she was, pirouetting in the center of a dance circle, under a spotlight.  Just then as if timed for my entrance, Bobby Brown’s ‘Humpin’ Around‘ began blaring over the speakers, and something took hold of me.

The whole dancefloor began bouncing, at some point my shirt came off, and a sweaty, festival of grinding and obscenity unfolded until I made my fatal mistake…

In a fatuous attempt to impress perfect strangers, I lifted my dance partner high into the air and spun her around until I felt a ‘crack’, as something in my lower back exploded.  I lurched over in pain and hobbled off to the side.   I knew immediately my dance card was pulled, I couldn’t see or stand up straight, through the waves of shame, pain, and cocaine.

I crawled to the bar and was helped onto a stool, where the bartender poured whiskey down my throat, I remember my love asking me if I had found my shirt, before helping me into a cab, where it all faded to black.

At the end of November, Rosamunde will be closing its location at Mission and 24th Streets, where we have been proudly serving our sausages and craft beer since 2010.

The Rosamunde menu will continue to be featured at Willkommen in the Castro. The last day of operations at Mission St. will be Tuesday Nov 21, 2023, so please come by for a visit to bid farewell.

Tuesday Trivia Night 7:30pm-9pm – music, movies, pop culture, general knowledge, bad jokes, prizes + beer specials!

​Food + Beer specials

Happy Hour: Mon-Fri 3pm-5pm 1/2 Off all draft beer

w/ food purchase

Hours:

Monday 11:30am to 9pm

Tuesday – Trivia 11:30am-10pm

Wednesday 11:30am-9pm

Thursday 11:30am-10pm

Friday 11:30am-11pm

Saturday 11:30am-10pm

Sunday 11:30am-9pm

https://www.rosamundesausagegrill.com/

RIP Rosamunde, I will continue to eat your sausages at Willkommen, and flashback to Mission nights.