THE 10 BEST San Francis Gay Clubs & Bars (Updated 2023)

Contents:

• THE BT GAY BARS SAN FRANCIS
• BEHOLD: A MAP OF SAN FRANCIS'S LOST GAY BARS
• THE 10 BEST SAN FRANCIS GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS SAN FRANCIS
• SAN FRANCIS’S OLD-SCHOOL GAY BARS ARE DISAPPEARG AS THE CY CHANG
• THE STUD, SAN FRANCIS'S OLST GAY BAR, IS CLOSG S DOORS DUE TO THE RONAVIS PANMIC

THE BT GAY BARS SAN FRANCIS

(Above: A scene om The Tool Box picted a Life magaze story lled "Homosexualy Ameri.

")We don't give gay bars the rpect they serve. After several proment bars San Francis started shutterg -- victims of Manhunt and Grdr and time -- I started mappg a cy's worth of shuttered gay bars.

Cheers, Dash (1908), 547 Pacific:San Francis may have had gay bars before the The Dash, but none were as notor. Focch's (1936), 506 Broadway:The drag show at Focch's was more of a tourist draw than an hont-to-goodns gay club, but helped brg gay culture -- and drag culture -- to the mastream spotlight. )The Black Cat (1951), 710 Montgomery:"There's nothg wrong wh beg gay -- the crime is gettg ught!

BEHOLD: A MAP OF SAN FRANCIS'S LOST GAY BARS

I951, after two years of police harassment, owner Sol Stouman took the police to the California Supreme Court, and argued that a bar uld not be shut down jt bee gay men ngregated there. He prevailed, providg stenance to the growg homophile Handle Bar (1960), California and Hy:Until 1960, most gay bars were expected to pay brib to police officers for 'protectn' om raids. But 1960, the "gay-ola" sndal exposg such brib beme a media sensatn, and began a discsn about the rights of gays to equal protectns unr the Q (1962), Polk St.

:In rponse to police harassment, San Francis bar owners formed the Tavern Guild -- the first gay bs associatn the Uned Stat -- at the Suzy-Q bar on Polk Street.

Members set up a phone-tree to warn each other of impendg raids, set up relief funds and raised money for homophile groups like the Dghters of Bilis, the Mattache Society and the Not? :In 1964, Life magaze featured a special report lled "Homosexualy Ameri.

THE 10 BEST SAN FRANCIS GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS SAN FRANCIS

One of the first mastream discsns of S&M, the article tablished San Francis the mds of middle Ameri (and lns of gay men) as a place of sexual diversy and tolerance. :The Stud helped cubate San Francis's gay hippie movement -- even Janis Jopl would e when she was town -- and provid an alternative to sweater queens and htlers. Wdows were smashed, police were fought off for hours and a muny showed s strength, providg a flashpot for gay and trans anizg on the Wt Coast: In 's wake a work of social, polil and LGBT-centric medil groups Hall (1971), 482 Castro:The origal Toad Hall -- a bar of the same name recently opened a nearby space -- is often creded wh lnchg the Castro as a gay district.

One of the first bars to chew a jebox favor of a DJ, Toad Hall ma the sleepy Eureka Valley a statn for gay men on the weekends, and soon bs owners and homebuyers saw the potential for a real neighborhood where gays uld live Peaks Tavern (1972), 401 Castro:Prr to Tw Peaks, gay bars were secretive affairs wh eher black-out wdows or no wdows at all. Last month we brought you a roundup of ads om funct gay bath ho town, and about a year ago we showed you a semi-current map of the dozen gay bars that rema the Castro. But back the days before the ter and Grdr, there were two or three tim more bars for the homosexual set sttered around town than there are now.

SAN FRANCIS’S OLD-SCHOOL GAY BARS ARE DISAPPEARG AS THE CY CHANG

Well, filmmaker and gay historian (and GayPornBlog-ger — lk NSFW) Mike Stabile has done a solid and created a Google map verg any and every historic gay and lbian bar he uld fd an addrs for. Two gay bars have closed already this year, Marlena's and Kok (formerly My Place), and both are beg mixed bars the future, jt the tert of foot traffic. See the map below, and as Stabile wr for the Pop-Up Mm of Queer History, the hand-drawn ads and matchbooks om this other era of gay bar culture reflects two generatns of gay men existg San Francis the 1970s.

" As source material, he ed ads om vtage gay magaz like Vector and After Dark, and there's also a PDF list that's been kept on the webse of the Cch Saloon, last revised 1996, that has some 700 bar nam on , most of them wh addrs. View Lost Gay Bars of San Francis a larger map.

THE STUD, SAN FRANCIS'S OLST GAY BAR, IS CLOSG S DOORS DUE TO THE RONAVIS PANMIC

The Lost Gay Bars of San Francis [QueerMm]. Tripadvisor performs checks on TSan Francis, CA354 ntributnsThe Pilsner is a tried and te sual gay bar that offers iendly service.

Paolo Lucchi1858ElixirClaimg to be the send-olst ntually operatg bar San Francis, this ty Missn District waterg hole has been through several rnatns sce openg 1858, much like Swe’s (a merchant mare bar) and La Banda (a gay bar the 1980s).

But while time march on, Tony Nik’s still feels a b like a iend’s livg Hoffman1935Tw Peaks TavernWhen Mary Ellen Cunha and Peggy Forster opened the Tw Peaks 1972, was revolutnary: a gay bar wh big enough wdows to show the world who was si! Opened 1951, the bar had s heyday the ’70s and ’80s, when beme a gay-iendly neighborhood spot unr the ownership of woman-about-town Lda Panst.