Foodie with a Cause: Peter Sieglar was a world class waiter…then an AIDS activist.

This piece recounts the life story of Peter Sieglar and his AIDS advocacy within the San Francisco culinary scene and at Shanti Project.

A native German who moved to San Francisco in 1978, Sieglar’s charming nature, good looks, and thick accent made his presence formidable and endearing, even in the midst of very clear indicators of his illness. Underneath the light powder makeup, Kaposi’s Sarcoma (KS) lesions had begun to cover Sieglar’s face.

He had little choice in having privacy around his AIDS diagnosis. A terrifying prospect in an age rife with paranoia and fear towards PLWHA. And yet, his message that night was on the importance of understanding how to continue living with a life-threatening illness. Already, he had outlived his doctor’s prognosis of two years prior to having 6 months left to live. Sieglar’s becoming a representative of PLWHAs that night, and continued advocacy until his death in 1988, reveals two overlapping histories that are sometimes lost in the larger narratives of San Francisco’s AIDS epidemic: the California food revolution and the emergence of gay and lesbian political power.

Sieglar’s journey from waiter to AIDS advocate highlights the intimacies of big events like Aid and Comfort and the PLWHA self-empowerment movement and how they converged in the city in tragic and loving ways.