“With all the changes that are going on, with all the new construction, there’s a sense that this culture and everything that finds a home at this bar is sort of being diluted,” Coombs said. Most regulars live within walking distance, including Chris Coombs, a 31-year-old merchant marine who stopped by the Stud on Tuesday evening to enjoy a Pabst with his boyfriend. I know that’s kind of odd to say, but it’s the building, and everyone mentions it when they come in,” said bartender Bernadette Fons, who has worked there for a decade. “The minute you come in, you just feel this warmth. Inside its current space, there are gilt mirrors and a disco ball and a small performance stage.
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The Stud opened in 1966 and quickly gained a reputation as a spot with a hippie vibe and eclectic customers. The once-empty lot next to the bar is being turned into housing. Across the street is Thumbtack, a startup where Jeb Bush held a town hall last year as part of his failed presidential bid, famously arriving in an Uber. The Stud is in South of Market, a still gritty and historically gay part of San Francisco where developers are rapidly building condos and restaurants to cater to tech workers who can afford $4,500 for a one-bedroom apartment. San Francisco has steadily shed coin-op laundries, neighborhood dive bars and auto-repair shops - all certainly part of natural turnover but hurried along by changing owners and rising rents. The tale is familiar in a city that is becoming ever wealthier with the arrival of newcomers taking high-paying technology jobs downtown or in nearby Silicon Valley.
OLD SCHOOL MIAMI GAY BARS FREE
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On Sunday, he called an emergency meeting to break the news to regulars.
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In June, the building was sold, and the bar’s owner received a notice that the monthly rent for the 2,800-square-foot space would leap from $3,800 to $9,500 in September. A sign at the front door, decorated with gold tinsel, reads: “Everybody is welcome at The Stud. One of the nation’s most celebrated gay bars may soon go out of business after a new landlord more than doubled the rent, part of a trend that has old-timers lamenting that the San Francisco they know and love - dilapidated and diverse - is disappearing.Īt 50 years old, the Stud is the longest continuously running gay bar in the city and known throughout the country as one of the bohemian, gender-bending, anything-goes institutions that made San Francisco into a gay mecca.