North Beach Rejects Singing Waiter

Would you like a little opera with your meal? Probably not.

A restaurant in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood is under fire for a plan to dispatch a waiter to sing to patrons. The man is a trained singer, and the restaurant, Colosseo, thought it be a nice though to have him perform.

But neighbors balked. The permit for the restaurant would have to include amplified performances, and that could lead to louder, less classy tunes. People living nearby are hoping that the singer can go on without amplification. They've raised the possibility that once it has the permit, the restaurant may try to sneakily convert itself into a nightclub.

But an orchestra is crucial to the performance, say backers of the plan. While the singer himself will be unamplified, the restaurant wants to pipe in an orchestral accompaniment from a small speaker.

This isn't the first time that the neighborhood group Telegraph Hill Dwellers has intervened to prevent something new for North Beach. They were also outspoken critics of a plan to build a new condo tower, as well as an effort to rehabilitate a theater that's been empty for 16 years.