How beloved SF sports bar Underdogs survived a fire, a failed kidney and a pandemic

Lower than two weeks later, on Dec. 15, Marschke was woke up at 7 within the morning by a flurry of texts asking if he was okay. The reply, honestly, was no: Just a few months earlier, he was recognized with kidney failure. However that’s not why individuals have been reaching out. Underdogs Too was on fireplace.

Marschke rushed over to the taco spot on Taraval Avenue and located it burnt to a crisp. Dozens of firemen had already put out the worst of the flames, however there was no likelihood of salvaging the constructing. Marschke’s thoughts went into overdrive. First, he was terrified staff may need been inside. That was not the case, although. What seemingly began as a small electrical fireplace on the first light had grown and grown and grown as a result of nobody was in but. So one concern was alleviated, and one other instantly sprung forth.

“As soon as I knew everybody was secure, then I used to be like, ‘Oh my God, what’s going to occur to all the staff’ jobs? And what’s going to occur to me?’” Marschke had a ton of loans connected to the second location, which had been working for only some years. “It was a catastrophe on the worst time,” he says.

Underdogs Tres has now been open for a little bit greater than every week, whereas Too is a pile of rubble. “It’s been an odd month, for positive,” Marschke says. No kidding.

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Marschke stumbled into proudly owning a sports activities bar because of his coed flag soccer group. In 2006, he satisfied Underdogs Sports activities Bar and Grill to sponsor his squad, whom he says received a number of championships earlier than they succumbed to, in his personal phrases, “getting previous.” Underdogs, in flip, satisfied Marschke to turn into an investor within the bar, and shortly, he was connected. Enterprise was struggling; inside two years, he’d invested increasingly and extra till it was his personal bar, at which level he satisfied his chef buddy Nick Fasanella to reinvent the menu with “nice meals that’s sustainable and contemporary and environmentally pleasant,” Marschke says.

Underdogs began garnering consideration in native publications for its extremely regarded fish tacos, after which the San Francisco Giants become a juggernaut. It was a potent mixture. When the Giants received the World Collection in 2010, Marschke remembers “insanity on the bar and insanity within the streets.” The continued success of the Golden State Warriors has additionally been a boon for enterprise, and Marschke — a College of Michigan alum — has all the time made positive to get big-time Wolverines video games on the TVs too.

Underdogs Too opened a number of years in the past. Each Underdogs areas have been doing nice at the start of 2020, Marschke says. March Insanity was quick approaching, which constantly led to packed crowds. The lease on the unique Underdogs was set to run out quickly, however its renewal was a formality.

The pandemic messed all of that up. Underdogs Too churned alongside as a result of it was higher organized for supply and takeout, however the first Underdogs was a “particular place that was actually constructed for indoor eating,” Marschke says.

There have been furloughs of greater than half the employees. When outside eating was allowed, Underdogs didn’t actually profit, as a result of there wasn’t a lot room for a parklet. Kitchen capability wanted to extend, and it could’ve taken an enormous funding to maintain the house. In September, Marschke reached out to the proprietor of the just lately closed Nopalito and negotiated to purchase the situation, which had a bigger kitchen house, a patio and a parklet.

In order that takes us again to mid-December. As Marschke was fixing for all of the little points that pop up while you depart one bar location, and fixing for all the massive points that come up while you’re arriving at a brand new bar location, his different bar burned down, which brought about far greater points.

“There are such a lot of individuals round you pushing playing cards in your face,” he says. “Smoke and fireplace remediation corporations, insurance coverage adjusters. They’re all making an attempt to get a bit of that insurance coverage purchase. It simply will get overwhelming. We pay them to be useful, however on the finish of the day, they’re simply making an attempt to get their minimize.”

Extra importantly, the 38 Underdogs Too staff are immediately out of labor in an trade that’s already decimated. Marschke doesn’t see the second stimulus invoice serving to an already-closed restaurant, so he launched a GoFundMe for his staff. “I wished to at the least give them one thing to get them via Christmas,” he says.

The GoFundMe — which is just essential as a result of federal, state and native governments have did not adequately help unemployed staff — has gathered $48,040 as of Tuesday. Marschke despatched out a spherical of checks from the fundraiser earlier than the vacations and plans on sending out one other spherical on the finish of this week, if you have anything to spare.

On the brilliant aspect, if you wish to name it that, Marschke is cautiously optimistic Underdogs Too will likely be reconstructed by this summer time. And his different location, Underdogs Tres, has gotten plenty of help from the neighborhood because it opened for supply and takeout. (They will’t use the patio or parklet he preferred a lot when he nabbed the brand new spot due to the outside eating ban.)

“It was robust for me personally making an attempt to not convey that adverse vitality to this location, however the employees that was shifting was excited,” he says. He guarantees that sometime, Underdogs Tres will likely be a vacation spot for large sports activities video games identical to the Taco Store.

For the foreseeable future, Marschke received’t be across the bar a lot. His kidney failure situation places him at excessive threat of extreme sickness from COVID-19, so he is understandably been a homebody (which can be why we didn’t ask him for portrait photographs for this story).

“It’s modified the way in which I function in life and with the restaurant,” he says. The excellent news — and that is really excellent news in a narrative stuffed with something however — is that he just lately discovered a kidney donor: his spouse.

You’ll be able to donate to the Underdogs Too GoFundMe for its staff here.