At the table: Buck’s of Woodside is still weird and wonderful after 30 years in business
By: Elena Kadvany
Tags: Bay Area, Restaurant, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Food

Have you changed the Buck’s menu? It seems pretty similar to when I went there as a kid.

The basic menu stays almost the same, although we have the Impossible burger now and Beyond Meat, but it looks pretty much like it did 10 years ago. That’s the basic menu: breakfast, lunch and dinner. We have our specials that change every two weeks. We have the dessert menu, the kids’ menu and the wine list. … if I went in there and I really worked on super innovative stuff I know I would appeal to a broader audience. It’s really hard to do that because I’ve got so much other stuff going on.

Last night, I made a pasta primavera at home, which was really great and I’d like to introduce it at Buck’s but it’s one more thing to do. This was fresh fettuccine, summer squash, mushrooms, onions, avocado and garden tomatoes that are all put in the pan sequentially so they all come out without the tomatoes falling apart and the onions being done. Then Parmesan, a little blue cheese, sour cream. That is really a good dish.

How have restaurants on the Peninsula changed since you opened Buck’s?

They have attempted, from Wolfgang Puck on out, to bring super sophisticated dining to the Bay Area — and it hasn’t happened. Is it Nobu that’s over in the hotel over there? People don’t rave about that place. … it’s a little forgettable. I hear Tim Cook lives on the top floor.

What was the most memorable tech deal or meeting that happened at Buck’s?

Tesla got their first money there. Tesla was literally founded at Buck’s. I like to say the founding is when the money hits the table and that happened at table 40. The founders are still in Woodside. Elon likes to say he was a founder, but he’s not. He was not there. … . He took it to greatness but he didn’t found it. I saw him last week (at Buck’s). We talked rockets because I had just been to the rocket launch site (in Kurdistan). … I see him just as a normal guy but he really is a titan of industry. He’s a character that will be remembered for a long time.

Popular singer Lana Del Rey (center) stopped by Buck’s in October during her current concert tour. (Image via Buck’s Instagram)

Are there any other famous visitors who have come to eat at Bucks?

We get a lot of the tech entrepreneurs …I don’t like to bandy them about much. It’s the movie stars when they come in, which is so rare, that really stand out. Robert Redford, Kevin Bacon (came) a few years ago. We get heads of state more than movie stars.

You’ve mentioned all the media attention the Buck’s has gotten over the years. Did you enjoy that?

At first, I was so thrilled to be part of the action. I’d save all the press clippings, videos … I thought the first time I was on a magazine cover was a big deal and the 10th time it was kind of boring. I was talking to Tim Koogle once, who was the president of Yahoo in their heyday, and said, ‘Do you remember when you stopped saving your press?’ He goes, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘Do you remember when you stopped reading it?’ He goes, ‘True liberation.’

By about 2005, I was over it. I love talking to journalists. But as far as saving the articles — if I don’t want to look at the old articles, nobody else is ever going to want to look at it. … unless it’s really strange. I’ve been in some really strange publications. There’s a magazine that costs 15 pounds in England and it’s just pictures of peaches and weird people and me and other weird people. Or the Hindustan Times. We’ve been in Der Spiegel and the Moscow Times and all the English papers. … But I am under no illusion that I’m an important person. I’m a character and I enjoy it. But the people that are really making a difference are like Elon. That’s an important guy. I’m amusing, but there’s a difference.

Omelettes and ambiance…at Buck’s. (Photo by Sammy Dallal)

You’re clearly a storyteller with a penchant for the fantastical, odd, bizarre. Where does that, your taking pleasure in all the stories and the zaniness, come from?

Psychedelics. Honestly, I think that I was largely formed by one single psychedelic experience in college (with) ibogaine. Across the whole panoply, from mushrooms, LSD, psilocybin, MDMA … ibogaine is way up there. It’s extremely rare. I’m working with it professionally now, ibogaine and the drug (that) comes from this animal (he points to a large gold ring in the shape of a toad on his finger), 5-MeO-DMT. This is a model of a Sonoran desert toad, and in this gland contains all the truth you’ll ever need to know. We’re treating, in Mexico at a clinic that I’ve helped establish, suicidal (veterans). We’ve taken a very troubled community — these men have been very badly damaged — and we’re giving them both these drugs over a weekend. We don’t give them their lives back. We help them see lives they’ve never had.

They’re hallucinogens. The ibogaine lasts 12 to 24 hours. It basically allows you to clear your hard drive and start over. You don’t forget anything, but you can visit past events in your life like they were real, just like you and I are sitting here. You can call up dead parents, people you’ve killed. … We use it to treat drug addicts and alcoholics because it’s incredibly effective. If you go to a well-run ibogaine clinic and you go through the treatment, the chances of you returning to heroin use are less than 50% if you don’t change anything else. … It just kills the addictive response. It also seems to kill suicidal ideation. The people we get are largely inclined to suicide.

Why is this something that you’re involved in and that you care about?

Because I took ibogaine in 1970. I was 20. I don’t know where I would have gone or who I would have been but I completely did a 90-degree turn and went (in) that other direction. I don’t know where I didn’t go but I know where I did go. It opened a creative vein that just let it flow. Ever since then I felt less tethered than most people.

If you could open any kind of restaurant, with no financial constraints, what kind of restaurant would it be?

I wouldn’t but let’s say my younger self — I was going to do a big seafood house on the water. We had one of the best locations in the world, literally 2 feet from the water with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge. We were going to make that a Woodhouse (Fish Company) … I’ve always liked seafood, but the oceans are dying so that’s not good. I’d love to see a restaurant that looked like it had a full menu of fish and chicken and beef, but it was all modern, healthy synthetic (foods), like the Impossible burger.

We have this deep mammalian passion for flesh. It’s how we survived efficiently. It satisfies a craving we have to be human and survive. When vegetarians say, ‘It’s unnatural’—it’s not unnatural. It’s very natural. Vegetarianism is unnatural. But still, that’s not the future of the planet. We’re gonna have to change. We’re gonna have to be unnatural.

Next year will mark Buck’s 30th anniversary. Do you have any plans to retire? Where will Buck’s be in 10 years? Or are you not thinking about that?

I don’t even think about six o’clock. One of my kids is moving to Skyline, so probably (he’ll) take it over. ... We don’t make plans.

(Editor’s Note: This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.)