COVER STORY
The Marina’s Eddie Savino uses a little block party to raise big money
for breast cancer research
By Bruce Bellingham
Photos by Elizabeth Armstrong and Matthew McFetridge

Eddie Savino has been in the Marina District for nearly four decades, and has left an indelible mark on the neighborhood – a very good one.

These days he owns Liverpool Lil’s, near the Presidio Gate, and the venerable Brazen Head restaurant on Buchanan at Greenwich Streets. But within and beyond the region, he and his wife, Marcella, are also known for their annual Brazen Head Block Party for Breast Cancer, held every year in September for the past nine years. It is now a Marina tradition.
In 1983, Eddie and Marcella bought the Brazen Head from Ralph Maher. This is where Eddie and Marcella met. They both were working there. The Brazen Head is a place where many people have connected over the years. It’s a bit famous for that, another Marina tradition.

Eddie, born in the Bronx, is always moving at 100 miles per hour. We grabbed him for a few minutes last month and sat down in the Brazen Head for a brief chat. Eddie was getting ready to fly to Southern California to attend a performance art show in Laguna Beach. He rarely stops moving.

The 9th Annual Buchanan at Greenwich Block Party to benefit the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation will be held on Sunday, Sept. 14 from noon until 6 p.m. Buchanan Street will be closed to automobile traffic between Greenwich and Filbert. The party features food, drink, live music, a silent auction, a raffle – even a casino tent.
Last year more than 1,000 people attended and the event raised $60,000.
For more information, call 415-298-6826 or e-mail Eddie at BrazenEd@aol.com

NORTHSIDE S.F.: Tell me how the block party got started.

EDDIE: I had worked here for 11 years before buying it. 2000 was our 20th anniversary of the place. I thought of having a little party. We don’t like to bring attention to ourselves, so we decided to have a benefit of some kind, give back a little. This means, ‘Thank you for twenty years, thank you for helping us to promote the effort to fight a horrible disease. We can give back to the community; all the hotels, the restaurants have given so much to us. And maybe we could do something in the cause to fight a disease that kills so many women, affects so many people.’

NORTHSIDE S.F.: Why select breast cancer as your cause?

EDDIE: Marcella had a dear friend who passed away from cancer. It started as breast cancer. She went into remission, then it spread to her bones. That was that.
That was our only connection at the time to someone we knew personally who suffered from cancer. But since then we have known others who have had cancer and have fought it.

NORTHSIDE S.F.: You were new to fundraising, but you seemed to jump right into it.

EDDIE: I had to ask myself, ‘How do you raise money?’ One of the reasons we went with breast cancer was that so many suffer from it and, quite frankly … it’s sort of appealing in the fundraising sense … because everyone rallies around it.

NORTHSIDE S.F.: Everyone pays attention.

EDDIE: Yes, and in America, many are paying attention to it. The whole thing started for us because I have four sisters, my mom, two daughters, my wife – I have six female employees here at the Brazen Head. We have so many women in our lives that we have to do what we can to make a difference. Our slogan is ‘We’re just trying to make a difference,’ that’s our whole shtick. We can’t do very much with this little block party. But we’re trying to rise awareness. We can donate some money.

NORTHSIDE S.F.: The Susan G. Komen people were not with you at the beginning, were they?

EDDIE: We originally started working with the Breast Cancer Fund. After the second year, seven years ago, the fund was changing personnel, and it just did not work out. So we went to the Susan G. Komen people and asked if we could use their name for our block party. They said sure. The first year there was short notice and they could not show up. But, after that, they showed up with volunteers, we were added to their Web site, we were included in their newsletter, and we became the kick-off for their Race for the Cure, which is being held on Sept. 21st. It’s huge. They have all sorts of events that have materialized during the past few years. They have a Baseball Day where the players wear ribbons and hats, they’ve hooked up with all sorts of major organizations as a vehicle. It’s working, it’s really working. It just took off.

NORTHSIDE S.F.: The partnership with the Komen Foundation seems a good fit.

EDDIE: They [the Susan G. Komen organizers] like the fact that we’re doing a small town mentality thing. It’s just a block party from 12 o’clock to six o’clock. It’s not a big, splashy thing. It’s just a gathering for awareness for people. We have music, food and beverage. But the main thing is that we have people saying, ‘Hey this is a good thing they’re doing for a good cause.’ The Komen people are really appreciative, and that’s really nice.

NORTHSIDE S.F.: These are tough times for the economy. The competition for donations must be fierce. Have you had requests for block parties to benefit other causes?

EDDIE: Yes, we’ve had the Alzheimer’s organization get a hold of us, and ask that we do something with them. We’ve also had the people working in the cause against prostate cancer. People want us to get with that. They said something like, ‘Hey you’ve been working with the breast cancer people for years. It’s about time you change it over to the guys and do something for prostate cancer.’ I said, ‘That’s a thought. We’ll see how that goes, but right now we’re staying with what we have.’ We really haven’t seriously considered doing something else other than the breast cancer thing.

NORTHSIDE S.F..: It sounds like you learned a little something from all this.

EDDIE: When you get involved with fundraising and when you do repetition, you get a brand: The Buchanan at Greenwich Block Party, the Brazen Head Block Party Benefit for Breast Cancer. I started to catch on that people contact us and wonder when it’s happening, where they can send money. It’s a brand. People are starting to recognize it as a good thing. It’s the ninth year and we’re getting so much more recognition for it. We got an e-mail this morning from one of our purveyors who’s going to send us a few cases of wine. We have a friend who has a store up on Jackson Street who sent us five cases of wine. People now call us and ask how they can help out.