Why everyone called this SF dive bar owner when Hawaii’s Mauna Loa erupted

He pulls out his phone, swipes a few times, then reveals a GIF of the personified volcano from Pixar’s musical short “Lava.”

“I got that a bunch.”

That’s because Curt owns Mauna Loa, not the volcano, but instead the classic 83-year-old Cow Hollow dive bar that shares the same name. Curt is part of a long line of Martins who’ve owned the bar. Just four years after moving from Hawaii to San Francisco, Curt’s grandparents, John and Marie Martin, opened the bar in 1939. They bought it for $10 and originally named it the Silk Hat — a name that stuck for 10 years before being changed to Mauna Loa in 1949.

The bar was originally located two blocks away from where it sits today, but moved to its current location on June 1, 1950 — the exact day its namesake volcano birthed a record eruption. On a chilly Tuesday afternoon in San Francisco, Curt’s sitting at the bar top, directly in front of a framed Herb Caen column commemorating the wild happenstance:

“Coincidence of the week: On the same day that the volcano of Mauna Loa erupted over on Hawaii, the Mauna Loa saloon at 3165 Stein closed its doors and moved two blocks away! To get away from the lava?”

A day after the most recent eruption, a handful of folks have ponied up to the bar with the world’s biggest volcano clearly on their mind. One patron is loudly Facetiming a friend and jokingly tells them she’s at Mauna Loa celebrating the eruption. Another wonders if he came today because the bar’s name was incepted into his mind by the news cycle.

Clockwise from top left: Veteran Mauna Loa bartender Stefanie Steele; interior decor including surfboards and a giant turtle shell; the bar’s beer garden (with original Brian Barneclo mural); and family photos tied to the Hawaiian origins of Mauna Lua. (Charles Russo/SFGATE)
Clockwise from top left: Veteran Mauna Loa bartender Stefanie Steele; interior decor including surfboards and a giant turtle shell; the bar’s beer garden (with original Brian Barneclo mural); and family photos tied to the Hawaiian origins of Mauna Lua. (Charles Russo/SFGATE)

Whatever the reason, they’re all here, seated at the semi-circle bar, surrounded by Hawaiian tchotchkes, wood carvings and a whole bunch of history. Coconut bras and multiple framed Tom Selleck photos share wallspace with immigration papers from Curt’s great-grandparents when they came to Hawaii from Portugal. There are custom surfboards from Sunset Shapers and, believe it or not, the mounted elk head that used to hang in legendary San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy’s office.

“I met Bochy during one offseason; he came in with his son Greg and we talked for a couple hours,” Curt says. “We talked about hunting and how he was really into it — we didn’t talk about baseball. And I said, ‘Hey, you know, if you ever have any horns for me instead of baseball s–t I’d put ‘em up,’ so he goes, ‘Would you really?’ ‘F–k yeah I’ll put it up there.’”

After he left the Giants, Bochy called Mauna Loa.

“Curt, you want this thing?” he asked, referring to the elk head. “Yeah, of course I want it,” Curt replied. It now sits in the back of the bar above the Big Buck Hunter game, sandwiched between two framed pictures of Giants World Series-winning front pages of The San Francisco Chronicle.

A framed photo of Bruce Bochy, left, hangs inside Mauna Loa near the stuffed elk head, upper right, that he gifted to the bar. (Charles Russo/SFGATE)
A framed photo of Bruce Bochy, left, hangs inside Mauna Loa near the stuffed elk head, upper right, that he gifted to the bar. (Charles Russo/SFGATE)

Mauna Loa later returned the favor to the Bochy family.

“His son Greg actually met his wife here,” Curt says. “Their dog is named Loa.”

Curt lives above the bar in the same apartment his grandparents and then his aunt used to live in. He’s the third generation of Martins to own Mauna Loa — his dad John, who was born five days before the bar opened in 1939, was a teacher in San Francisco at George Washington High School for years, before retiring and settling back into the family business with his sister Diana Langlois.

But at that point, his son — who has been bartending here since he turned 21 — was already mostly running the show.

“[John] was just coming in counting quarters,” Curt says with a laugh.

Through 83 years, all of the Martins have kept a unique part of the bar’s Hawaiian roots alive. Curt, who turns 60 on Monday, goes to Hawaii every year, and he’s quick to point out Mauna Loa’s Hawaii-ness isn’t about miniature King Kamehameha statues or tiki drinks.

“It was never a tiki bar. Even though it had Hawaii stuff in it,” he says. “The big thing about Hawaii for me was my grandmother was always just embracing of people, that kind of neighborhood feeling. You go to Hawaii, if you go to any of those local places, they’re all like that.”

Stefanie Steele, who’s been a bartender at Mauna Loa for the past five years, describes it better than anyone.

“This place is just really cool,” she says. “Sometimes it’s crazy, and sometimes it’s just like hanging out.”

(Charles Russo/SFGATE)
(Charles Russo/SFGATE)