Giovanni Giotta motioned with his outstretched arm at one of the photos that almost entirely cover the wall of his North Beach cafe. "Do you know him?" he asked with his thick Italian accent. He ...

Since the early 1970s, Ida Giotta stood out among other San Francisco baristas by stepping from behind the espresso counter at Caffe Trieste and singing Italian arias in a clear, beautiful soprano - ...

It's where a movie classic was born, where the Beat Generation hung out and where, legend has it, San Francisco's frothy love affair with cappuccino began. Today, North Beach's famed Caffe Trieste ...

The regular Saturday concert at Caffe Trieste in North Beach was already under way when the cafe's founder, Giovanni Giotta — known to regular customers simply as Papa Gianni — arrived. He climbed ...