A beloved bartender, recently employed at Absinthe, but with a long history in the S.F. bar and restaurant scene, died last week in a motorcycle accident.
His life will be celebrated at a memorial on Sunday. Erik Dean, 51, had been working back-to-back shifts at Absinthe and Sauce last Monday when he got on his motorcycle around 2:30 a.m. on Tuesday, July 8 to head home. As SFGate reports, he was broadsided by a car that ran a red light at Sutter Street and Van Ness Avenue, and died at the hospital of internal bleeding.
Dean was well known in the community both for his drink-making skills and his travel tales. Notably he once road his motorcycle from Mexico to Canada. Friends have been sharing photos and stories about him on this Facebook page for the memorial celebration, which starts on Belden Lane on Sunday, July 20, at 11 a.m. The festivities will continue at Comstock Saloon, where Dean once worked, at 4 p.m.
In addition to Absinthe, Sauce, and Comstock, Dean did stints at The Polo Grounds (then called The Park), MoMo's, Paragon, Mecca, Betelnut, The Old Ship, Gordon's House of Fine Eats, and The Caribbean Zone. Back in the 1980s, he was a bartender at infamous SOMA nightclub Club DV8.
As good friend Brent Jones tells the Gate, "He lived an unbelievably full life."
Below are a pair of videos, shot a year apart (the second one in December of 2013) of Erik Dean putting on a show as he ignited the Bacardi 151 for a Spanish coffee behind the bar at Absinthe.
