In 1998, these San Francisco men got a tattoo to snag free tacos for life. Here's what happened after

Twenty-two years ago, Casa Sanchez in San Francisco estimated that its notorious tacos-for-tattoos deal would cost somewhere in the ballpark of $5.8 million.

Martha Sanchez, who came up with the deal, arrived at that pricey estimate after the promotion was already underway. Assuming that the 50 or so inked-up people stayed in San Francisco for their lifetimes and got an eight-buck meal every week, the figure would be staggering. That number didn't even include the second round of people when Casa Sanchez revived the deal; more on that later.

But for at least two of the first people in San Francisco to get inked up in exchange for free meals, the grub was never the point.

Rewind back to 1998: Greg Tietz, then 35, had only been in San Francisco for a couple of years and was looking to plant his roots in his neighborhood when a Mexican restaurant's promotion piqued his interest.

Get a tattoo, get free Mexican food for life.

"I was just a happy-go-lucky bartender at Bottom of the Hill," Tietz, now 57 and a video logger for ESPN, told SFGATE. "And I was trying to explore areas of the Mission I hadn't been to, and found myself walking past Casa Sanchez."

By that point in time, Tietz had wanted to get his first tattoo but was wracked with indecision — a feeling that many first-time tattoo recipients can attest to.

"Like, boy this really needs to be special, really needs to mean something. I'm nervous about it."

Something about the Casa Sanchez tattoo just stuck for Tietz. The logo, a young boy riding a cob of corn-slash-rocket ship lovingly named "Jimmy the Cornman," was great. The food was, too. (He only vaguely remembered his first Casa Sanchez meal, a "deluxe" carne asada burrito with all of the fixings.)

"I caught a co-worker friend of mine who had probably a dozen or more tattoos, saying, 'You should come check this place out with me and see what you think of the offer,' and helped me find a good tattoo artist."

That friend was Guido Brenner, who now runs security at Bottom of the Hill. Brenner told SFGATE that he liked the art, and the food was quite good, even as a lifer in San Francisco who knew the Mexican food scene "like the back of [his] hand."

That same night, Tietz and Brenner became the second and third people to get the Casa Sanchez logo permanently fixed onto their bodies.

The actual first person, it turned out, was a local who got the Jimmy tattoo long before the promotion was even announced.

"She loved it so much that she came back with the logo tattooed and said, 'Hey, what do you think?' and [Martha] said, 'Oh, you get free lunch for life,'" Brenner said.

Martha's sister wasn't on board with the tats-for-tacos deal, Brenner added, taking the sign off the window whenever Martha would put it up. But Martha reportedly persisted, reprinting the sign until her sister relented. (Martha Sanchez did not respond to a request for comment for the story.)

What happened next: They went viral the old-fashioned way. It made the rounds on the San Francisco alt-weeklies, then KPIX and the San Francisco Chronicle.

That was Martha's doing, Tietz said.

"She was savvy with media, trying to publicize the offer, and she was like, 'Here's the first guy to get the tattoo.'"

Brenner recalled at least three or four other people getting the same tattoo within the next 24 hours, compelled by the story and the flash sheet still laying around in the parlor.

Tietz still remembers that first spread with photos of his ink, published in the now-defunct San Francisco Bay Guardian.

And then when the local news cycle died out, the national one came months later: The Associated Press ran a wire on the promo. CNN featured them on their news shows for weeks. "All Things Considered" had them on the air. Tietz went on "Leeza," Leeza Gibbons' talk show, sitting on a panel next to Jennifer Flavin, Sylvester Stallone's wife, and actor D.B. Sweeney.

"I was just like the guy that they kept teasing," Tietz said of his experience on the talk show, "like, 'This guy gets free food for life and wait till you hear what he had to do.'"

Then, it went global. A German travel show profiled him, Tietz said. He ended up, inexplicably, on a Chinese TV show, he said.

By no means was either of them a celebrity. Tietz only really recalled getting stopped out in public once: At a gas station on 9th Street. Brenner would occasionally get spotted while at work.

But the Casa Sanchez promo felt part and parcel of an idiosyncratic, almost quaint vision of San Francisco, that, only in this city would residents line up in droves to be marked for life with a cute small business' logo in exchange for eight bucks worth of food.

Then, Casa Sanchez revived the promotion in 2010 as the recession dragged on, branded as a "stimulus special." And, like clockwork, the media cycle began once more.

KPIX did another segment with him on. The Wall Street Journal did a feature, showing off Tietz, Brenner and a new vanguard of people who joined the tattoo-meal pact.

For as long as he lived in Potrero Hill, just a hop-skip away from the Mission, Tietz enjoyed the meals, never forgetting to put a few bucks in the tip jar.

That was big for him. In a 1999 interview with the Chronicle, he said, "You don't want to take undue advantage of something like this. It's karma."

He still stands by that.

"Generally, servers are good tippers, because we do like karma. I believe in that and it keeps the money coming back in so we can get by as service industry workers. ... I didn't want to go in there and like, you know, picking their pockets, in a sense and always showing up for free food."

And, within a month, the food paid for itself. The publicity the two of them got for the years that Casa Sanchez was in operation was a nice bonus.

But the thing that stuck with them the most, back in '99 and now, was this idea that the "tacos-for-tattoos" promo did end up in a family of sorts.

Every time a news organization wanted a story, Sanchez would corral all of the tattooed folks at the restaurant and gather them together, and every time would be like a family reunion — with everyone keeping up with each other's kids and work and relationships.

"It was a little community, of those of us that got the tattoo and also, between us and the Sanchez family," Tietz said.

The way Tietz explains it, he's lived in San Francisco for nearly as long as he's had the Casa Sanchez tattoo. He's still pals with Brenner, both tied by the bond that the tattoo provided the two of them, and by the Bottom of the Hill "family" they both were a part of.

And for Brenner, he's still in touch with Martha Sanchez, who he fondly calls Marty.

"I have gone on trips [with] her husband. ... I've gone out to Cuba with him before to interview Harley riders out in Cuba," he said.

He was also in a band with another tattooed person and her husband.

We'll never find out whether the deal cost millions; the restaurant shuttered in 2012 in a deal with another local restaurant — two years after it revived the tattoo promotion — so that the family could reorient its efforts on its thriving grocery-store snack line.

And, for those disappointed in the meals running out, no fear.

The restaurant that ultimately took over Casa Sanchez's old lease, the pupusa shop D'Maize, has it in their lease agreement that anyone with the OG tattoo is welcome to a free pupusa. (Tietz has stopped by once or twice, and Brenner's been three times, at least, but the familial aspect isn't there, they said.)

"I certainly respect their business decision, they're still like family to me," Tietz said. "I don't, I don't have any, you know, problem with them stopping the free food. But what I do miss is that the food was really good, and you know I always got to see family in there and they always made us feel extremely welcome."

The colors have faded a bit. The cob of corn has gotten a bit stale, faded to a late-day yellow as opposed to the day-glo of the original Casa Sanchez logo he got tatted on him back when he'd get a burrito once a week.

But for all intents and purposes, the tattoo the two of them got meant way more than the food or even the notoriety. The tattoo, the story behind it and the friendships he cultivated — all thanks to Casa Sanchez — will all last in perpetuity.