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.