Part of the Gay San Francisco Guide — bars, events & things to do.
San Francisco, California
SF's longtime lesbian bar (1962) with a legendary garden patio.
Founded in 1962 by Pat Ramseyer and Nancy White — two out lesbians who opened it when it was still illegal for women to tend bar in California — Wild Side West is one of the oldest continuously operating lesbian bars in the country and San Francisco's longest-running. It began in Oakland, passed through North Beach (where it took in the neighborhood's strippers along the way), and settled at 424 Cortland in Bernal Heights in 1977. Janis Joplin was an early regular. Pat left the bar to Billie Hayes, who has run it since 2010 and keeps a small altar to her at the end of the bar; it remains lesbian-owned and carries SF Legacy Business status. The reason to cross town is the back garden — a lush, sculpture-and-found-art patio that feels like a secret once you're in it. Inside is dim, warm, and unbothered. It's a bar that has outlasted nearly everything around it, and it shows in the best way.
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