7/7/09

The Alpine Inn (formerly Rossotti's)

When it was Rossotti's, this place was a notorious biker bar. There was a lot of criminal activity and drug dealing. I think there used to be a whorehouse upstairs or out back. At some point, there was a fire... well, my memories are vague.

Alpine Inn

I was just a kid and I heard about it from my grandparents who lived a few miles down the road. Rossotti's figures prominently in my childhood imagination as "a dangerous place". I always paid close attention when we drove by.

By the 1980s, it got cleaned up and became the Alpine Inn. Now it's a Stanford hangout and a beer garden for Silicon Valley types. Inside there are still signs of its former self.

Alpine Inn

Alpine Inn

The long tables are carved with graffiti going back to who knows when.

Alpine Inn

You come for the ambiance, not the food. But the burgers are not bad, imo.

Alpine Inn

The beer selection is fairly routine. Root beer is A&W (my beverage selection today).

Alpine Inn

I have heard the chili is excellent, but I can't remember who told me that.

Alpine Inn

You can sit out back.

Alpine Inn

A stream runs through it.

Alpine Inn

6 comments:

omnicharm said...

As a child in the cleaned-up '80s, we used to ride our horses to Rosotti's and tie them up out front to go in and have lunch. I think the rail is still there and occasionally used.

Adriana said...

Looks like my kind of place!

Frances said...

It looks like an old west saloon.

Annie in Austin said...

Would be too chicken to go to a "notorious biker bar", Chuck, but since it's now tame enough to offer veggie burgers guess I'd be brave enough to stop there now.

There's something like this near some of my Illinois family - being supposedly once owned by Al Capone adds luster to a joint with time.

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

Don "Smiley" Nelson said...

It was never a "notorious biker bar" with drug dealing and all that. I have been a regular since 1954 (when I was a Stanford freshman). Sometimes there are bikers and all, but it was just a regular joint.

tahoejimbo420 said...

I spent a lot of time there in the mid80's and tho it was a bar frequented by bikers, it was a Stanford U hangout since prohibition, and has always had a unique mix of students,hippies,yuppies,rich,poor, old and young.