The San Francisco pizzeria that almost turned down Woody Allen

May 3-Gaspare's, a pizzeria in San Francisco's Richmond District, is something of a time warp. Checkered tablecloths drape over dining tables, and tiny jukeboxes are mounted on the walls tableside. Rows of plastic grapes hang from the ceiling. The waiters wear white button-ups and black pants. Out front, a neon sign displays the restaurant's name in red script.

Daniel Indelicato, who co-owns the restaurant, acknowledges that the ambiance is "nostalgic."

"I struggle with that, because there's times that I want to do a full remodel to modernize it," Indelicato said. "... But it seems it's not what our old-school customers want to see." The restaurant's pizza oven is still the same one that was installed in the 1950s, when another Italian joint occupied the building, he told SFGATE.

The restaurant, which has been at Geary Boulevard and 20th Avenue since 1985, is the sort of old-timey, family-run business endemic to the Richmond. It's a place your parents might have gone on a first date, and then taken you there, 10 years later, for your first chicken parmesan.

The retro charm has attracted more than just diners. If you pick the right booth, you might end up sitting in the same seat as Cate Blanchett did for a scene in the movie "Blue Jasmine," a performance that won her an Oscar and was directed by famed (and now disgraced) director Woody Allen.

That film shoot is just one anecdote in the full story of Gaspare's, which also involves a cruise ship "meet-cute," San Francisco's most famous fine dining restaurant and two generations of Indelicatos.

Daniel, who is 45, took over Gaspare's from his parents, Gaspare and Robin, in 2018. He co-owns the restaurant with his wife, Patra.

In the 1970s, it was common for Italian immigrants to work service jobs on cruise lines, Daniel told SFGATE. One of those Italians was his father. While working as maître d', Gaspare met Robin, a passenger who was from San Francisco. Gaspare landed in the Bay Area with her and stayed.

This pipeline - cruise line job to romance to opening a San Francisco Italian restaurant - was apparently a common one. "It's the same story with other North Beach restaurateurs that are my dad's friends," Daniel said.

Gaspare worked for a spell at Ernie's, the famed fine dining restaurant in Jackson Square. (In a phone call with SFGATE, Gaspare described Ernie's as "the most beautiful restaurant San Francisco has ever had.") In 1984, when a strike put him out of work, Gaspare went looking for a restaurant of his own. He spoke to Vince, the owner of a Richmond District pizzeria (which was named Vince's), to ask if he knew anybody with a restaurant for sale.

"Don't look anymore. I can sell you mine," Gaspare recalls Vince telling him.

That's where Gaspare's got its pizza oven. The jukeboxes are holdovers from Vince's, too; it opened in 1958. In 1985, the restaurant changed hands, and Gaspare installed the neon sign.

Daniel was 4 years old at the time. He and his family lived in Marin County, and he started working at Gaspare's as a teenager, as soon as he had a driver's license and could cross the Golden Gate Bridge on his own. He bussed and waited tables and made pizzas. After attending the hospitality management program at City College, he returned to the restaurant as a manager. In 2008, he opened a second Gaspare's location in San Rafael.

"I always wanted to implement changes at my dad's restaurant, but he was content in his old ways," Daniel told SFGATE, recalling his father joking with him over it: "So basically he said, 'Hey, don't change anything here. If you want to do it your way, go open up your own f-king restaurant.'"

Daniel and Patra have been running both locations since his parents retired. Although the Geary restaurant looks the same, two key things are different. For one, the jukeboxes are out of order; the man who used to repair them died. Beyond that, operating a restaurant is much more costly than it used to be: PG&E rates have shot up since Daniel took over, and DoorDash and Uber Eats fees eat into margins.

"My parents made a small fortune off of one restaurant, and now I own two restaurants and it's a struggle to pay the mortgage with the cost of living," Daniel said.

That struggle trickles down to the customer, too. Pricier food means older customers, and fewer teenagers on first dates. Young people used to eat out before a night of bouncing between the Richmond's Irish bars. That sort of diner has become rarer.

Still, after 41 years in the neighborhood, Gaspare's regulars remain loyal. Some even remember the days of Vince's Pizza.

It's likely that the restaurant's kitschy, old-school feel is what drew the eye of director Allen for that "Blue Jasmine" scene.

The movie tells the story of a New York City socialite who, after losing all of her money, crashes with her sister in San Francisco as she struggles to get back on her feet. Jasmine, played by Cate Blanchett, eats at Gaspare's with her two nephews, both children. Drunkenly, she tells them how doctors gave her "Edison's medicine" - electroconvulsive therapy - after a mental breakdown.

"You must have heard of Prozac and lithium," she says, leaning towards her blank-faced nephews. "Well, all those drugs just made me worse."

Daniel's father, Gaspare, said that he received two phone calls from the film crew asking to rent out the restaurant for a weekend, and refused both.

"It will not be fair for my clientele," Gaspare recalled saying. "They get over here, they cross the city, and then they come here and it's closed."

The third time, the caller dropped Allen's name. For Gaspare, that sealed the deal. "I go, 'Wow, that changes everything. With Woody Allen!'" Gaspare recalls.

The film crew spent three weekdays at Gaspare's, during which time trailers and catering trucks lined a few blocks of Geary. Gaspare's daughter was filmed serving water, and Gaspare was filmed making pizzas, although that footage was cut. Allen was reserved, Gaspare said. People got quiet whenever he told someone to do something.

For a while after the film's release - and Blanchett's Oscar for best actress - clients would come into Gaspare's and ask which booth she sat in. (It's the third booth on the right side, beneath the Sorrento mural, Gaspare said.)

"Blue Jasmine" gave the restaurant a boost in business, but over time, that buzz died down. Although the restaurant business is tough these days, Daniel intends to keep going for as long as he can.

His customers appreciate consistency, he said. In four decades, Gaspare's recipes haven't changed; the linguine with clams is the same as it was in the '80s.

"They come for the food, they come for the ambiance," Daniel said of his regulars. "They come because it's nice and fun when you've been going to the same place for so many years."

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