Excerpts From Three New Novels Inspired by San Francisco and The Grubstake Diner

John Jason Phillips, the creator of the murals at The Grubstake diner at 1525 Pine Street in San Francisco, will bring another aspect of his creative life forward at the restaurant tonight (September 11, 2025) at 7 pm when he will premiere and read from his three new novels: The Last Days of the Barbary Coast, Queen of the Mission, and Queen of Mystery.

The novels are set in San Francisco in the early 1980s and are fictionalized accounts of some of his experiences while driving a cab. Phillips shared excerpts from all three books with the San Francisco Bay Times:

From The Last Days of the Barbary Coast
Chapter One

Moonlight streamed through the window of Casey’s upstairs office in the house on Potrero Hill. Beside him, the wastebasket was nearly full of crumpled pages, false starts at his attempt to chronicle the amazingly horrifying events he was trying to turn into a novel. Crowding him on the desk were pages of notes, photos, and notebooks full of items detailing those events; even copies of the horrific drawings of red-haired women being tortured that he had found in his cab. Those drawings were the catalyst that brought to an end the Red Hair Killer murder spree. It was an atmospheric night, one that he hoped would inspire him to get the first words down, but nothing pleased him. He watched the moon rising over Oakland and heard the whooshing sound of a train leaving the tunnel far below floating on the air. The cat wound around his feet and purred softly.

“Crap!” he said aloud, tossed the current sheet in the trash, and rolled a new one into the typewriter. He knew it was important that his readers understand the rarefied time in which the events occurred; he, and others, saw these times as a continuation of the legendary Barbary Coast time of San Francisco, a time of which many knew little.

He began again. “San Francisco’s Barbary Coast was a red-light district during the late 19th and early 20th centuries that featured dance halls, saloons, bars, jazz clubs, variety shows, brothels, and other amusements that make life in this brutal time tolerable.”

“The Barbary Coast was born … .”

Another sheet of paper ended up in the wastebasket. “Once upon a time there was a Fairyland. No sprites and pixie dust here, rather tight jeans and T-shirts, leather and chains, and several thousand gay men seeking to create a world of their own. It was a community that the world had never seen. Soon the Eureka Valley neighborhood, a mainly Irish working-class neighborhood, expanded to bursting and became known as The Castro.

Some called it heaven, others derisively called it a return to the days of the Barbary Coast, the red-light district that arose after the California Gold Rush of 1949 when the city’s population soared from a few hundred to over 25,000 inside of two years. Here, miners celebrated their success or buried their sorrow. It was marked by persistent lawlessness, gambling, administrative graft, vigilante justice, and prostitution, qualities not unlike San Francisco in the early 1980s.

There were plenty of gay men on the Barbary Coast and it was where the now infamous hanky code evolved. In a society that did not tolerate them they found a way to openly, but secretly, communicate their identity and desires. All it took was a red or blue bandana in the left or right rear pocket of their Levi’s; it was necessary communication for contact in a society that pretended they didn’t exist. The hanky code was still in full bloom in 1982’s Castro. The men lived openly in the neighborhood and short-handed their sexual desire through those squares of printed cloth.

To many, this newly created world of gay men and the tragic times the City was staggering through were evidence that the Coast still endured. Underlining that idea was the fact that the City, not just the Castro, but all the way up to the heights of society, was on a snow-blind high. Cocaine was everywhere.”

“There we go,” said Casey. “Now I can tell the story.”

Chapter Two

It wasn’t yet midnight on Isis Street, a shabby short street full of tattered buildings, tattered people, and tattered dreams. The houses are propped against each other, their clapboards have not seen paint in ages and the refuse of life has spilled onto the street. Squatting under the elevated freeway, these are homes of some of the residents of San Francisco’s Folsom District, many of them gay, those gay men that did not adhere to the ethics of The Castro, but like The Castro, South of Market, as it was affectionately called, was a big part of the modern-day Barbary Coast.

Fog boils around the lampposts and slithers past narrow windows hung with torn curtains, if any. Slashes of light spear the darkness as the mist thickens and thins. A face momentarily appears behind sooty windows then disappears in the flash of headlights from the freeway high above. It’s quiet now, but not for long.

Earlier this Halloween night, the streets were alive with commuters making their way to the freeway, then with the goblins and witches of the few families of the neighborhood in search of treats. Few sounds can be heard now, only the dry rasp of the fog as it slides through the narrow passageways, changing colors as it moves between light and shadow. Soon the stillness will vanish.

From Queen of The Mission

That left one choice—shelter at the Grubstake.

Bill, Casey’s confidante had just arrived and was busy straightening up the nearly vacant restaurant before the evening crowd arrived and could talk.

“Hey you.”

“Hey yourself, big guy. What brings you here on a Sunday night?” He saw the strain on Casey’s face and sat on the stool beside him. “Lay it on me, bud.”

Casey rubbed his face, a characteristic move when he was trying to think of what to say. He mumbled, “An acquaintance of mine has been murdered.”

Bill said nothing, but poured Casey a cup of coffee then rejoined him. What is it with you, guy? Do you go looking for these things? Though you would know better from the last time … .”

“No, no, no. It’s nothing like that.”

“What is it like?”

“You remember my friend UltraSheen.”

“You mean the drag queen that killed that crazy Spanish guy?”

Casey nodded.

“What about her? Who’d she kill now?”

“Nobody … but a guy who she used to work with was found in a dumpster.”

“My god!”

Casey spilled the details. “But that’s not the worst of it.”

“You’re telling me there’s something worse than murder?”

“No, I’m not. What I mean is there was another murder very similar to this one last week.”

“And how does that affect you?”

“I told you about our plans to do a show.”

“And?”

“My friends think someone is hunting drag queens and want me to get out of the deal. They think that we’re just opening ourselves up for trouble if we become so visible and they don’t want any part of it. Mike’s pissed at me and so is Gloria. They can’t forget what happened before.”

“For god’s sake, Casey. That was horrible and you almost got yourself killed. Can you blame them?”

“No, I understand, and, in some ways, they make a lot of sense.”

“Aren’t you afraid your girls will be sitting ducks?”

“That’s what they are afraid of, but surely, no?”

Bill shook his head. “For your sake, I hope not. What can I get ya to eat?”

Casey ordered. He wondered if Bill’s reluctance to pursue the matter meant that he was of the same mind as Mike and Gloria.

When Bill brought his food, he said, “Didn’t mean to be abrupt with you. I needed to think for a minute. There were two queens in here earlier talking about that queen and the lamppost, but I didn’t really know what they were talking about until you explained. Casey, they were scared.”

“Scared?”

“They’re already a few steps ahead of you in thinking the lamp post thing is not an isolated incident. You know how people can be and how we all jump to conclusions. Just like your friends. The rumor mill is running at full speed.”

Casey hung his head. “I just can’t believe it and I can’t abandon UltraSheen. She and her deep pockets lover are trying to decide

 what to do. He arrives tomorrow.”

“Make of it what you will, but I would think that you and your Sherlock Holmes leanings would make you think twice.” Bill stared at Casey in silence for a minute, then went on. “This project you’re talking about with lots of drag queens—how does that affect Mike and Gloria?”

“We’ve hired Gloria as company manager and I have to live with Mike. Like I said, we’re trying to produce a big show and I’m excited to do it.”

“But Casey … in the Mission? You know what that neighborhood can be like.”

“I know, I work there enough in the cab.”

“Maybe so, but buddy, you’d better keep your eyes … and my ears open.”

Casey nodded and began to eat. Bill went about his duties.

As he ate, he wondered how badly he was blinding himself to reality. He grabbed a newspaper from under the counter and tried not to think about it. He wished he hadn’t.

Another Drag Queen Murder was the headline.

From The Last Days of the Barbary Coast

The restaurant was originally a streetcar from across the bay in Oakland, but once it was transported to San Francisco and retrofitted, it became a diner that became famous. It made an appearance as a re-
fuge for Humphrey Bogart fleeing trouble in the film The Big Sleep. In the ‘50s, the Beatniks of North Beach found it to be a great communal space, and, in the ‘60s, it became the center of Polk Street counterculture, a mecca for the gay Hippy world. This old streetcar with the unlikely name of The Grubstake became a cultural phenomenon.

The diner, at first seating only 12, was mainline. If you were a regular at The Grub, you were definitely cool. Drugs abounded, social contact was easy, so easy that the possibility that the guy sitting on the stool next to you would soon be your bed partner was a frequent reality. There was no judgement, and, as of then, little disease. It was a hangout for aspiring artists, many of whom worked behind the counter. Casey’s curiosity and his stomach led him there and into a long-standing relationship with the diner and its owners.

As the mid-70s rolled around, the restaurant space was doubled and the walls stood empty. Once management discovered that Casey was a painter, they contracted him to fill those walls and the front of the building with murals. Over a period of six months, he did so, accepting no money but eating at will and becoming fully immersed in Grubstake culture. He produced a series of five large scenes depicting a train journey from New England to San Francisco in 1865 on the inside, and, on the exterior, a scene of the train arriving. Casey had no idea that this casual job would endure far further than he could imagine and would become his legacy.

Once the project was completed, Casey began succeeding artistically elsewhere, painting and doing graphics, painting murals for businesses in the newly burgeoning Castro District, and designing what became classic T-shirts for the gay community. Despite this, his romanticism gave way to cynicism, believing that it couldn’t last. Mike tried to head off this train of thought but with little success, and Casey’s appetite for long hours in the cab were laced with too much Scotch after work, and cocaine became a major player. Rather than having a profitable, satisfying life as an artist with a man who loved him, he became a recluse in a house in the middle of a San Francisco neighborhood called “Dogpatch” and driving the nightshift.

He relished the fact that most people thought the area’s name came from the Li’l Abner comic strip, but that was not the truth. In earlier years, the area was home to meat packing houses. Soon feral dogs made it their home, growing fat on the abundance of discarded scraps. Packs of them roamed the area, feeding and multiplying; the name “Dogpatch” stuck.

In this reckless life Casey had constructed, he allowed few friends other than Mike, counting only three: Gloria, his neighbor; Vinnie, a regular customer; and Bill, who was the swing-shift counterman at The Grubstake. He kept his love affair with Mike quiet. He refused Mike’s invitation to live with him in the great apartment on Upper Terrace and squirreled himself away on Potrero Hill, occasionally painting, sometimes writing, always getting frustrated, and usually feeling miserable.

It was 4 am and Casey had just finished a 12-hour shift in the cab. It had been an unusual night, profitable, and marked by gossip about a woman found in Golden Gate Park. “A grisly murder,” the people in his back seat whispered—was this the beginning of yet another serial killer?

For more information about John Jason Phillips and to purchase the books, go to: https://www.johnjasonphillips.com/

Arts & Entertainment
Published on September 11, 2025