Julius' Castle has SF dining's greatest comeback story. It only took 18 years. – SFGATE

Julius’ Castle has SF dining’s greatest comeback story. It only took 18 years.  SFGATE

Telegraph Hill neighbors Stephany Dery and Carolyn Duffy are sipping drinks in what will soon be the most magnificent neighborhood hangout in all of San Francisco — a historic castle-like restaurant tucked into a cliffside at the end of residential Montgomery Street. The friends, who live mere feet away along the stairway to Coit Tower known as the Greenwich Street steps, are among the first people inside the renovated Julius’ Castle, a landmark that’s finally reopening to the public after closing 18 years ago. It debuts on Nov. 12. “To have some place close to the house that we can go to, I can definitely see us hanging out at the bar,” Duffy casually told SFGATE at the restaurant’s pre-opening cocktail party on Nov.

1. “I actually came here years ago for my high school prom dinner, so it is a real full-circle moment.” You could live in San Francisco for decades and not know that a place like Julius’ Castle existed — that’s how hidden it is. Owner Paul Scott’s then-teenage son first spotted the for-sale sign on the three-story building more than a decade ago. It was beaten up and beyond run-down. “He said something like, ‘That would be cool,’” Scott recalled to SFGATE. “That was the start of the whole thing.” Another bidder was going to turn