San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Patron was legend at historic Albany bar
For more than 50 years, Richie Cortese was the Hotsy Totsy Club’s most famous regular. He presided over the historic Albany bar every afternoon from his perch, just to the right of the bar’s center well, in a stool embroidered with his name. Any press coverage of the establishment invariably mentioned “Uncle Richie,” recounting some of his legendary antics — like how he’d get up and dance on a 3-foot-tall pole to impress fellow customers.
Since Cortese died last month, the Hotsy Totsy Club has been in a state of mourning. “There’s a phantom limb thing going on,” said Michael Valladares, who co-owns the bar with Jessica Maria. They hosted a celebration of life for Cortese on Dec. 27, which would have been his 75th birthday; they’ve mounted various belongings of his, including his dentures, on the walls of the bar. On Feb. 3, a formal memorial service will be held for Cortese
in El Cerrito.
With Cortese’s death, the bar has lost more than just a beloved customer.
“Richie was the last of his tribe,” Valladares said, a relic of Albany’s blue-collar past, a link to the post-World War II era when San Pablo Avenue was dotted with seedy bars. When Cortese began coming to the Hotsy Totsy in the 1970s, it was a haven for construction workers who would show up at 6 a.m., waiting for the bar’s phone to ring with gigs.
Regulars like these are what can transform a bar from a business to a community. “He was the person that welcomed you in,” said Valladares. “Everybody knew Richie.”
The Hotsy Totsy has been around for at least 85 years — its earliest recorded mention is in a 1939 Oakland Tribune article. When Maria and Valladares bought the bar 15 years ago, it was immediately clear that they’d have to earn the trust of its unofficial mayor.
“Absolutely, he was skeptical
of us,” said Maria, a celebrated bartender who added a menu of craft cocktails to the Hotsy Totsy when she and Valladares took over. At first, Cortese would come into the bar only when his favorite bartender, Chester Anderson, was working.
But the new owners won him over, and “he really vouched for us with the other old-timers,” Maria said. The couple felt it was important not to take the Hotsy Totsy away from its existing regulars — in other words, “not to make it a fancy place,” said Valladares. Once they got Cortese’s stamp of approval, the rest of the daytime crowd warmed to them.
Cortese grew up in town, graduating from Albany High School in 1967. His various professional pursuits included plumbing, butchering and construction.
Although he was married three times, according to Valladares and Maria, at the end of his life he wasn’t close with his biological family. The Hotsy Totsy was his family.
Every day, he’d show up around 2 or 3 p.m., riding away on his motorcycle by 6. “It was like he worked here,” said Maria. He’d fill ice, replenish bowls of potato chips and peanuts, and use his pocket knife to help bartenders remove the foil from unopened bottles.
For years, Cortese’s drink was tequila with orange juice, cranberry juice and a splash of Sprite. Then, shortly before the pandemic, some of the bartenders convinced him to cut back on sugar. (One of them, a personal trainer, also got him into a fitness routine.) His order in his later years was Tequila with club soda — and just a tiny splash of Sprite.
At the Hotsy Totsy’s annual offsite staff party, Cortese was always the only non-staffer in attendance, joining the team for all-night dance parties at a rental house or showing up to Chez Panisse in “his best Budweiser jacket,” said Valladares.
When he was admitted to the hospital in early December, for complications from cancer, those staffers showed up. His death came quickly, Valladares said: He went to the hospital on a Thursday and died the following Monday. On the day he passed, he was lucid, with Maria and five current or former Hotsy Totsy bartenders in the room with him.
“He left surrounded by his chosen family,” said Maria.