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It’s more than just steak and potatoes at recently reopened Izzy’s on the Peninsula, formerly known as Izzy’s San Carlos.
For managing partner Samantha DuVall Bechtel, the reopening is an opportunity to honor her late father’s legacy while modernizing the 40-year-old steakhouse menu to feature local, seasonal ingredients and to accommodate dietary restrictions (even vegans!).
“It was important to me that this 40-year legacy continue,” she said. “As a born-and-raised San Franciscan, you see many historical restaurants close, especially during COVID. And so I think it was important to me that this legacy feel like it had new life breathed into it and also that it had an opportunity to live on.”
Izzy’s on the Peninsula, which reopened Jan. 10, is the second location of Izzy’s Steaks and Chops, a San Francisco steakhouse established by Sam DuVall in 1987. The steakhouse is inspired by bootlegger Izzy Gomez, whose saloon in San Francisco’s Barbary Coast was demolished in 1952. Izzy’s Steaks and Chops temporarily closed for renovations starting in October and plans to reopen this summer.
Renovations of both restaurants were spearheaded by DuVall Bechtel, who spent 11 years working in commercial real estate before her father got sick and died in 2020.
“My father and I were very, very close,” she said. “I had the opportunity to grow up taking drives with him to the Mission to pick up tomatoes and try all the different restaurants that he wanted to try that were opening up in the ‘80s and ‘90s in San Francisco, which was really a lot of fun.”
An only child, DuVall Bechtel aims to keep her father’s dream alive. The seven-month renovation of the San Carlos location included increasing private dining rooms, revamping the menu, constructing private booths and painting a mural paying homage to the steakhouse’s history.
“There are a number of really fun Easter eggs in that mural that nod to the past in our history,” DuVall Bechtel said. “From the imagery of my father and also regulars and team members that have worked for us for many, many years, there’s just a lot of fun history interpreted there.”
Guests can expect about 60% of the menu from Izzy’s San Carlos and 40% to be new, she said. You’ll still see steakhouse classics like New York strip steak, filet mignon and prime rib, but you’ll also see vegetarian options like mushroom bolognese (made with mushrooms sourced from Gilroy-based mushroom farm Global Mushrooms) and farm-to-table options like the daily crudo.
“We’re really lucky in the Bay Area to have such incredible farms and local purveyors,” she said. “We are really starting to showcase that seasonally on our menu, whereas before, the menu didn’t really change with the seasons.”
The 7,500-square-foot, 270-seat restaurant features two private dining rooms – the Pacific Room and the Barbary Room – as well as an alfresco dining and event space called The Garden and a semi-private event space called Isadore’s Table.
“We are so excited to be back in this community and want to thank everyone for all of the patience while we finished our improvements and are getting our legs back under us to really be here, hopefully for the next many decades,” DuVall Bechtel said.
Izzy’s on the Peninsula, 525 Skyway Road, San Carlos; 650-654-2822, Instagram: @izzysonthepeninsula. Open 5-9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 5-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday.