Zinc or Pewter Bar?

[mroboston]

Visiting from Boston and looking for a good spot for a drink or a glass of wine and my wife LOVES the zinc or pewter bar...can anyone rec a place with this feature?

[bbulkow]

Oh yeah - Vero in Palo Alto has a small but very pleasant zinc bar in the back.

[dolcevita_sf]

Terzo has a zinc bar. http://www.terzosf.com/
Le Central, I think. http://www.lecentralbistro.com/

Copper, if I recall, at Absinthe. http://www.absinthe.com/

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Terzo
3011 Steiner St., San Francisco, CA 94123

[Candice]

I believe Cafe des Amis has a zinc bar. Cotogna has a zinc or copper bar, can't remember which. Good luck!

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Cafe des Amis
2000 Union St, San Francisco, CA 94123

Cotogna
490 Pacific Ave, San Francisco, CA 94133

[steve h.]

Copper at Cotogna.

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Cotogna
490 Pacific Ave, San Francisco, CA 94133

[wolfe]

Pewter is a malleable metal alloy, traditionally 85-99% tin, with the remainder consisting of copper, antimony, bismuth and lead.
Close enough?

[steve h.]

Pewter is a wonderful alloy. The bar at Cotogna is bright, shiny copper. The bar at Waterbar is a wonderful zinc (pewter). Both bars are pretty enjoyable.

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Cotogna
490 Pacific Ave, San Francisco, CA 94133

[boris_qd]

Do you know if it's zinc or pewter (they are different). I'm actually (strangely enough) looking for a place with a pewter bar. (pewter contains tin and tin is the traditional 10th wedding anniversary gift...)

[wolfe]

That is the traditional, the modern is different. Tradition is good.
Tenth
Traditional Tin / Aluminum
Modern Diamond Jewelry

[steve h.]

Howdy Boris,
I'm working off memory here: the bar top has a French hallmark but I believe there is tin in the "zinc". The hallmark is on the right side (east) of the half-moon bar near the server station. I should have taken a picture but I didn't.

[jman1]

Le Zinc seems to claim that "Zinc" bars are actually made of pewter. From their web page, "The cafés of Paris have traditionally been called“ zincs”
(pronounced ‘ zang’ ) the name being derived from the pewter bar counters which became a trademark of these establishments."

In addition to the zinc bars mentioned above (Cafe Claude being a good example), a search of Yelp will highlight more. But, no results for "pewter bar".

[wolfe]

This company seems to consider them different
http://www.handcraftedmetal.com/zinc_...

[boris_qd]

That's what I found too. Both the periodic table and the seller of metalic bars say that zinc and pewter are different.

[wolfe]

Is a periodic table similar to Schrödinger's cat, it is sometimes there and sometimes not or perhaps sometimes it is a chair?

[Robert Lauriston]

Cafe Claude's zinc bar and most of the other bar furnishings came from a Parisian bar that went out of business.

Can you actually sit at the bar at Le Zinc? Photos don't look like it.

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Cafe Claude
7 Claude Lane, San Francisco, CA 94108

[wolfe]

"Can you actually sit at the bar at Le Zinc?"
Was that a condition of the OP? If so I guess that lets out Cafe Fanny. standing room only
http://www.cafefanny.com/aboutus.html

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Cafe Fanny
1603 San Pablo Ave, Berkeley, CA 94702

[steve h.]

Plenty of room at the bar at Waterbar, views are pretty good, too.
Deb and I have had more than a few drinks/oysters there but never a full meal. It's an interesting space.

[steve h.]

Waterbar.
It has a French hallmark you can spot at the end of the crescent bar, furthest from the door, near the window. Very cool.

[wolfe]

What's in a name, Le Zinc?
http://www.lezinc.com/about.htm