40 years of giving the city character
Famed Beefeater figure Tom Sweeney hits a milestone
In the back closet of a row house on a treeless strip of the Richmond District hangs a line of heavy red jackets with gold and black piping.
There are 45 of them, and they belong to Tom Sweeney, who will complete his 40th year as the doorman at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel at 11 p.m. Monday. At the end of his shift, his trademark seven-piece Beefeater uniform — sourced from four continents — will be added to the array and a fresh one unwrapped before he starts his 41st year on Thursday.
“Not bad for an entry-level job,” he says, a typical Sweeney quip that also explains the key to his fame — and no doorman anywhere has enjoyed more of it. He never wanted to rise above that entry-level job.
Forty years and the job hasn’t changed, the mustache hasn’t changed, and the jokes haven’t changed. The only changes are the size of the uniform (up from 40 to 42), wheels on luggage and the incessant demand for selfies with Sweeney, 59, as he stands in front of 450 Powell St.
Sports stars and movie stars, casting agents and advertising directors, big-city mayors and foreign dignitaries. The world has come to him bearing gifts of Beefeater teddy bears and Beefeater figurines. There is a place for all of it inside his stucco two-story Home of the Beefeaters, as he calls it.
Take one step in the door, and there is a picture of a plaque set in stone in front of the Drake. “Tom Sweeney legendary doorman, over 30 years of magical moments,” it reads. One more step in, and there is a mayoral proclamation, “Tom Sweeney Day,” May 1, 2016. On surrounding shelves are Beefeater dolls and trinkets, and that’s just the entryway.
Up the stairs, you are greeted by a framed full-length portrait taken by Pulitzer Prize winner Deanne Fitzmaurice, formerly of The Chronicle’s photo staff. On a chair at the head of the table in the dining room is his first uniform, and on the table itself is a copy of San Francisco, the Magazine, dated April 1989, opened to the cover story on the “Homes of the Rich and Famous.”
Listed between Dianne Feinstein’s home in Presidio Terrace, valued at $2.5 million, and Carlos Santana’s Mill Valley spread, $1.3 million, is Sweeney’s home off Geary
“I don’t think it is the costume that makes Tom what he is. He is an ambassador for San Francisco who happens to be in a Beefeater suit.” Charlotte Shultz, chief of protocol for the city and county of San Francisco and the state of California
Boulevard, $275,000.
“I’m not trying for any of this stuff,” he says. “I’m just your basic kid from the Sunset.”
A Beefeater, in the historic sense, is a guard at the Tower of London. They’ve been there for centuries, and lore has it that the name came from the fact that guards were paid in chunks of meat. Sweeney has been to London to study their demeanor, and showed a group of Beefeaters his own picture wearing an identical uniform.
Word spread, and when then British Prime Minister Tony Blair came to San Francisco in 2006, his one request was that the resident Beefeater be there to greet him, at a reception at Charlotte and George Shultz’s Russian Hill penthouse.
“A Beefeater either stands at attention or is something you drink, and Tom is neither of those,” says Charlotte Shultz, chief of protocol for the city and county of San Francisco and the state of California. “He has a quip and a smile for every passerby at the Drake, young or old.”
On the late Chronicle columnist Herb Caen’s 76th birthday in 1992, Shultz organized a parade of 76 trombones down Bush Street, and Sweeney marched in front as the drum major.
“I don’t think it is the costume that makes Tom what he is,” Shultz says. “He is an ambassador for San Francisco who happens to be in a Beefeater suit.”
All because there was a fouryear waiting list to take the tests to be a fireman or police officer when Sweeney graduated from Riordan High School in 1976. During the wait, he worked as a stadium vendor at Candlestick Park and the Oakland Coliseum.
“I was selling soda with Tom Hanks at A’s games,” he says, showing off his gift for namedropping.
The only time Sweeney had seen a hotel doorman was at his prom. But his mom knew the general manager at the Drake, which opened in 1928, and got her son hired as a summer fillin.
The first time Sweeney put on the Beefeater uniform, “it was overwhelming,” he says. “I was more excited than the guests I was checking in.” That first day, working alone, he checked in 300 guests. Within two weeks he knew it was the career for him.
“I was used to being a vendor and being yelled at by 60,000 people. That’s like being a doorman,” he says, with a voice that still squeaks like he’s hoarse from hawking beer in the stands at the Stick. “You learn a person’s history in a minute, and then they’re gone.”
There are 100 hotel doormen in San Francisco, and most of them wear uniforms that “look like airline pilots,” Sweeney says. What separated him, aside from the singular outfit, was one 1981 incident.
Two thieves hit the Drake and took off down Powell Street on foot, and Sweeney gave chase, his Beefeater hat flying off as he ran, just like Willie Mays in center field. Near Union Square, Sweeney dove and hit them from behind, taking both down at once.
The story made its way into Herb Caen’s column. Mayor Feinstein read it in her morning paper and decided to honor Sweeney with a “Nick of Time” Award. His timing was good, because the other two honorees that week in January 1982 were 49ers Joe Montana and Dwight Clark, for their heroics in “The Catch.”
The picture of the three of them taken in the mayor’s office traveled far, mostly by way of Sweeney distributing it. “A quarterback, a receiver and a tackle,” he says.
Soon enough, he got roles in commercials and TV shows, always bringing his own costume. He played a doorman on the “The Young and the Restless.” The Chamber of Commerce built an ad campaign around him.
When he finally got the call for the police and fire test, he was too big. “I told them, ‘I can’t join you,’ ” he says. “This job is too high profile. Herb Caen’s writing about me, and all these things are coming at me right and left.”
The Drake signed him to a multiyear marketing contract and put his uniformed image on 417 room keys and on luggage tags, water bottles, T-shirts, dolls and posters for sale in the gift shop. The Starlight Room named a drink the “Sweeneytini,” and his face was on the room bills.
“I’ve never heard more people talk more about one person than about Tom Sweeney,” says Kevin Holl, a San Francisco attorney who has known Sweeney since they were kids growing up “below the Boulevard,” meaning west of Sunset Boulevard. “He’s an eternal optimist and always upbeat.”
To locals he is either “Sween” or “Sweencat,” and he’s known for his Sweeney-isms. One of them is “girls love a man in uniform,” and it worked with Cindy Passanisi, who was waiting for a cable car in front of the hotel when the Beefeater came into view.
They’ve been together for 25 years and married for eight, raising her two kids in the Home of the Beefeaters.
“Oh, yeah!” he says while snapping his fingers and pointing at you, which is another Sweeney-ism, followed by the football reference: “First and 10. Move the chains.”
Sweeney likes to work the 7 a.m. Sunday shift because people are checking out and there is more action. He also works the 3 p.m. shift on Wednesday and Thursday to get the rush of early weekend check-ins.
When he gets off at 11 p.m., he still has energy to burn so he changes out of his Beefeater suit and runs home in the dark, 5 miles up and over Nob Hill and Pacific Heights, turning left among the trees at Sea Cliff, and heading toward his own treeless street.
He has advanced farther than he ever imagined, from the Sunset north across Golden Gate Park to the Richmond. The house is paid off, the kids are gone, and he has a place on the Russian River, the only vacation destination for a kid from below the Boulevard.
He’s earned his pension with both Concession Vendors Union Local 468, for his 20 years as a part-time stadium vendor, and with Local 2 for his 40 years at the Drake, and he’s set a retirement date, January 2020, to give his public three years to prepare. He figures after 43 years he will finally be ready to take off the Beefeater suit for good. Then again, he is already backpedaling.
“You kind of miss it when you’re not there sometimes,” he says. “Every day is a new audience.” Then he snaps his fingers. “Oh, yeah.”