Good eating recalls local mainstay Noah's Ark

Noah Williams opened Noah's Cafeteria, his first San Mateo establishment, in 1923. Located in the Fisher Building at 139 South B Street, it occupied the storefront at which AAA Vacuum & Sewing is situated today. Since Noah's Cafeteria closed, the building's front wood and stucco facade has been replaced by three large show windows, and the sign reading "Noah's Cafeteria" was removed.

Williams quickly drew from his faithful San Francisco contingent of customers. There are photographs showing patrons in front of Noah's Cafeteria standing in a line which stretched down the B Street block toward First Street. They came from all over the Peninsula to taste Noah Williams' famous fried chicken and Missouri baked hams.

In 1924, Noah Williams moved his cafeteria to a new Spanish-Italian style stucco building on the southwest corner of A Street (now San Mateo Drive) & Third Street, where Collins Pharmacy is located today. A community leader as well as a culinary master, Williams led city merchants in the establishment of Third Avenue as the main corridor for downtown. The new site for his restaurant became just the third building constructed on the Third Street block between A Street and El Camino Real.

Williams opened Noah's Ark in January of 1925. The opening proved to be the civic event of the season, with the mayors of San Mateo, Burlingame, and Hillsborough in attendance. Noah's Ark served more than fifteen hundred people during its first weekend of business alone. Unbelievably, the Ark would surpass even Noah's Cafeteria in popularity, quickly becoming the place to eat and one of the most fashionable gathering places on the Peninsula. Everyone ate at Noah's Ark, including stars staying at the nearby Benjamin Franklin Hotel, such as Ginger Rogers and Laurel & Hardy. Even the governor of California, Friend W. Richardson, was quoted as saying he "longed for some of Noah's specially cooked ham."

Noah's Ark became renowned as much for its decor and ambience as for its cuisine. The theme of the biblical Noah's Ark permeated throughout the restaurant. Williams used only the choicest cutlery and place settings, with an ark embossed on every dish, glass, fork, and napkin ring. The restaurant's design included a mezzanine floor, a men's smoking room, a spacious women's lounge, plus the most modern kitchen and refrigeration facilities.

The main dining area offered plush furnishings and the finest linens. Iron animal figurines dangled from the chandeliers, while the walls featured huge paintings of animals, including an elephant, a lion, a giraffe, a deer, and a hippopotamus. Although an artist named de Treville reportedly sketched the beasts, Noah actually completed the artwork, proving his talent in other arenas beside the kitchen.

By all available accounts, Noah Williams was an extraordinary man; outgoing, flamboyant, and charismatic. As San Mateo's first successful African-American businessman, he became a leader in the community, offering employment and opportunity in an era presenting little of either to people of color. Noah Williams was reportedly loved and recognized throughout town. He could be seen cruising around San Mateo in his huge Lincoln convertible touring car, top down, waving to the pedestrians.

Noah's Ark, like many other businesses of the late 1920s, was sunk by the Great Depression. San Mateo's most popular restaurant closed its doors in 1931. Noah Williams fell into bankruptcy, reportedly because he could not fathom doing anything cheaply. Williams opened another restaurant on Third Avenue and El Camino, but it never achieved nearly the fame and popularity of Noah's Ark. By the 1940s, Noah Williams retired completely from the restaurant business, becoming the chef for the Paulist priests at old St. Mary's church in San Francisco.

Noah C. Williams, Jr. died in 1962, at the age of 74, at San Francisco's Laguna Honda Home for the aged. Noah's Ark was the most popular restaurant in the history of San Mateo, and Noah Williams' influence on the community has endured to this day.