The Midnight Diners is a regular collaboration between KQED food editor Luke Tsai and artist Thien Pham. Follow them each week as they explore the hot pot restaurants, taco carts and 24-hour casino buffets that make up the Bay Area’s after-hours dining scene.
To find the best late-night food in Marin County, you have to snake through the dimly lit, warehouse-dotted back roads of San Rafael, past the auto dealerships and the landscaping supply stores, until you pull up to a low-slung, windowless brick building.
This is Pete’s 881 Club, and at first glance, the place looks like a lot of different things before you’d ever suspect it of being a notable dining destination.
Most prominently, it’s a sports bar — an old-school one, in both its aesthetics and its (gracefully aging) clientele. Ten wall-mounted TVs ensure a clear view of the Warriors game from any seat in the house. Pete’s also happens to be the only legal poker room in Marin County, which accounts for the two felt-topped card tables set off to one side of the room. On any given night, you’ll find an assemblage of serious-looking Texas Hold’em players in rumpled sweatshirts and baseball caps, poring over their stacks of chips.
You order food at a place like this because you want something to snack on while you watch the game, or because you don’t want to drink too many PBRs on an empty stomach. But you don’t necessarily expect the food to be any good. You certainly don’t expect a $26 prime rib that draws favorable comparisons to House of Prime Rib (at about half the price) — pink in the center, immaculately seasoned and succulently tender, with a charred crust and a streak of luscious, wobbly fat down the middle. The plate comes with horseradish cream, a big ol’ baked potato and some of the most delicious creamed spinach I’ve ever had — a super-rich version laced with bacon.
