She talks about being raised in the upper-middle-class Buich family, who owned San Francisco’s famed Tadich Grill. She calls her upbringing strict, loving and marked by expressed disdain for people who weren’t white or Christian. A fellow might be “a great guy” if he came into the restaurant, but you knew never to bring one home, she says. “I didn’t understand it, but I didn’t question it,” Upshaw says. “I lived in a house where you didn’t question.”
As a young woman working as a hotel catering manager, she met an older football player. An African American. They hit it off and became friends. Then more. He retired, accepted a job in Washington and asked her to move with him. They’d dated for eight months without her family knowing, and she had to make a decision.
“I was scared,” Upshaw recalls on a recent afternoon near her home in Northern Virginia. She says she broke the news to her brother and sister first. “They said, ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this.’ They said our parents would be livid, upset, disappointed, embarrassed, ashamed.”
Word got back to her father. She remembers how much she sobbed in that final family meeting with her parents and siblings. She was 23 and pleading for love — both theirs and her own. She thinks her mother and siblings were crying, but it has been so long. Only the final message was clear.
When she told her father that she had decided to follow the black man she loved to Washington, she says, “he told me that’s it — you’re out of the family. Change your last name, and don’t ever call us again.”
It was 1983. They married in 1986.
The black man was the legendary Gene Upshaw, whose 15-year career as a guard for the Oakland Raiders landed him in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. During 25 years in his equally famous second act as the controversial head of the National Football League Players’ Association, he helped usher in free agency, which led to an explosion in player salaries. Upshaw died in 2008, days after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The union headquarters in Northwest Washington is named Upshaw Place in his honor.
Terri Upshaw says she has not heard from her family in decades, true to their final message. While visiting San Francisco a few years ago, she saw a news report that Tadich Grill would open a D.C. location, and last month it did, to great fanfare. Guests included prominent members of Congress and a Supreme Court justice.
A friend says:
The Tadich Grill may be the oldest restaurant in California. It specializes in fresh fish and seafood dishes cooked in traditional fashion. Its menu appears to be printed daily. The Grill (and the Daily Grill) restaurant used Tadich as a template for the ambiance they wanted to create. It is worth visiting when you are in San Francisco even if you don’t eat there. A long counter, curtained boots, a high pressed ceiling, all male waitstaff. A big plate of San Francisco sourdough bread and butter put before you when you sit down.
The restaurant itself does not discriminate against any customer based on race religion or ethnicity, but the prices are sufficiently high that it is out of reach of anyone below middle class income.
The Tadich Grill bills itself as “the original cold day restaurant.” They should now amend it to “the original cold white day restaurant.” The article references Supreme Court Justices eating there. My guess is they would be Anthony Kennedy who is from Sacramento and Steven Breyer who is also from San Francisco (and comes from a wealthy family: Breyer’s Ice Cream was founded by their father or grandfather.)
Robert Levine posts on FB: I hope all my friends in the DC area will boycott, if not take the time to picket, the new Tadich Grill.
Robert Levine Jabari, you & I are both former Washingtonians: I can’t decide whether Tadich Grill’s decision to open a location in a city whose permanent population in 90% black is idiotic in light of the Buichs’ bigotry or deliciously ironic.
Daniel Sayani Here’s a thought. If a frum Jewish family opened up a great kosher restaurant, and if they had a child who intermarried, and if the family disowned that child, would you also call upon the public to boycott the business?
Robert Levine No, Daniel, because that’s a religious prohibition. Judaism prohibits Jews from marrying non-Jews. Nothing prohibits whites from marrying blacks.
Daniel Sayani I had a feeling you would say that. Don’t you find that to be hypocritical? This family’s set of values is intolerant of miscegenation. Many Jewish families oppose miscegenation of a Jew and goy. Trying to distinguish the two on logical grounds minus the influence of tribalism and religion just won’t hold up. How do you know this family’s religious beliefs don’t preclude accepting an interracial marriage? I always say don’t expect from others what you won’t do yourself.
COMMENTS AT WP:
* Very poor reporting for this article. Upshaw was still married when he met this woman. They carried on the affair from 1983 – 1986 when he finally divorced his first wife in 1986. The first wife was found dead in 2002 in Oklahoma under suspicious circumstances. To have his second wife only to bring up just certain facts to make her family look bad now shows the evil and spite she has for them now. The next WP does an article like this, can they teach their reporters how to be journalists first?
* This so-called article is a waste of space. Families have disowned offspring for marrying people of whom they disapproved for thousands of years.
The attempt to equate this situation with daily societal racism is severely flawed. Just because parents want their grandchildren to look like them does not mean that they hate blacks, protestants, catholics, jews, muslims, italians, south americans, native americans, whites, asians or anybody else.
Additionally, it appears that the parents simply said don’t contact us again. They did not mount a campaign to destroy her. The daughter, however, must feel that her parents did not have the right to make this decision and is going to drag 80 year olds through the court of PC public opinion. It sounds as though the daughter has a problem.
* And my parents disowned me when I married out of their religion. Will the WP please do a story on ME?
What a waste of space. Families do this sh*t – since the beginning of time. How is this really news or anyone’s business except feeding the attention Wh*re who brought it up years later?
* My dear friend Monica, an African-American woman, refused to date black men because she said they treated women badly. She married a white man. Does that make her a racist?
* It is not a crime to tell your child that if you marry someone they don’t like that you will not speak with them again. The woman had a choice and she made her decision. She should simply live with it and leave her parents alone, as they have left her alone.
* Ultimately, this really is nobody’s business except for the families.
Why people go public with this stuff is simply beyond me.
I file it all away under the continued “Gracelessness of America.”
* Well played kill shot to your family’s restaurant. No one knew about this, no one CARED. I bet this article would not have been written if the family did not open a DC branch. Revenge may take time, but she got it. Well played.
* The purpose of this article is destroy the family’s business. Nice.
* So it appears based on a large % if not majority of comments that Ms. Upshaw’s torpedoes to the SS Tadich have holed it at the water line re patrons boycotting.
I’m guessing that if you personally knew the proprietors of a lot of family owned businesses, particularly bars and restaurants, you’d find an awful lot of jerks, but most of them don’t have somebody reaching out to the press to undermine their business.
Is there any history that Tadich discriminates against black employees/patrons?
* I guess we will now be bombarded with stories of various religious intolerance, honor killings, daughters sold into marriages and on and on. Um, probably not.
* For those who are all too quick to judge others, consider this. I grew up in a working class neighborhood in an Italian-American home next door to a family of Orthodox Jews. When their son decided to marry a gentile, the parents not only disowned him, but said Shiva for him,meaning he was dead to the family, DEAD. These were kind, otherwise loving people who followed an ancient cultural/religious tradition. Was this racist? Should we condemn them for such a practice? Is a family justified to consider its own common values, even if they do not meet popular approval? Did the son not also reap what his decision sewed?
* Assuming this story does eventually fact check and is by and large true, I don’t know how this restaurant is going to recover, I mean, you are situated in probably two of the most liberal cities in America. Even if they were to have an “epiphany” and welcome back their daughter and grandchildren, who is NOT going to think they are even worse people for going with a fake acceptance only after their livelihood has been threatened. I mean, if you’ve had 30+ years to come to terms and only do it now . . .
* A large plate of revenge, served cold, is now on the menu at Tadich Grill. While I have complete respect for the choices Mrs. Upshaw has made in how she lived her life, it seems she has pulled out an old axe, had some help from Ms. O’Neal in grinding it razor sharp and has now decided to serve a heaping portion of raw meat to the internet with the goal of shutting the restaurant down. And I can’t say I blame her, but let’s not pretend the goal of Mrs Upshaw and the reporter is to shine the warm light of tolerance on all the dark corners of racism left in the world. This is a hit piece.
* This should not have been printed. It’s a one-sided attack on the woman’s family as racists, based on nothing but the woman’s statements. Reaching out to the other side for a comment is not enough here. They could legitimately decide not to comment just because it’s a private family matter – maybe they simply don’t want to get into family issues through the Washington Post. There is no public interest here – this is a private family matter – none of the family is a politician or celebrity. The family, with a restaurant, are also highly vulnerable to injury based on this story. You have to question this woman’s motives in going public on something like this, which she knew would hurt the family economically. WaPo is better than this.
* I am not excusing her family (as I am black). Before we all give her a complete round of applause, read the online [alleged various accounts the Upshaws and others] of Gene Upshaw’s will or was it really his Will…which details the wife’s and attorney plus his wife’s action as Upshaw last moments.The first son had sue to ensure his rights. Per accounts, Upshaw signed a new will moments before dying despite questionable medical condition leaving everything to her. Witnessed by attorney and wife, who then later changed their written statements. I just don’t find her hands to be completely clean. It would be most interesting to understand/know the whole story. Upshaw’s first marriage of near twenty years ended the same year of their marriage. Six years later, the former wife’ skeletal remains were found in Afton, Ok, died strangely in a town where no one knew her alone in a field with a slight nod to mental issues. Upshaw represented NFL players and came out financially (15M) better than the players, unbeknownst to the players he represented (revealed after him death).
* How in the world is this considered journalism? All you have is the statement of one person who claims that the reason the family shunned her is because her husband was black. But for all we know, she could have been a druggie or a jerk to her parents. Without a statement from her family (or corroboration from another source involved) this is just rumor mongering that could seriously adversely affect a business.
* Hey, look! Total strangers are taking to Yelp to intervene in a family dispute by lying about their experiences, online. Once again, Yelp is a haven for petulant reprobates.
* No different than when orthodox Jews marry non-Jews, Hindus marrying non-Hindus, or Muslims marrying non-Muslims. There are always those families who disapprove. It just happens that this family is known in SF because of their restaurant.
