A Tinker's Damn (Historic Santa Clara Gay Bar/1964-2014)

A Tinker’s Damn — Santa Clara Vintage Gay Bar Tee

For nearly half a century, A Tinker’s Damn was one of the great queer institutions of the South Bay.

The bar at 46 N. Saratoga Avenue in Santa Clara took the Tinker’s Damn name in 1964. It initially attracted a gay following before officially becoming a gay bar about a decade later—and eventually earned a reputation as the oldest gay bar in Santa Clara County.

Its history also includes a small but important piece of local gay liberation. In the 1970s, owner Izel “Starkey” Starkey fought for the right to allow two men to openly dance together at the bar, finally winning that battle by the end of the decade.

And dancing became a very big part of Tinker’s Damn. Over the years there were DJs, packed dance floors, drag shows, pool, pinball, Sunday barbecues, strong drinks, and the kind of mixed crowd that could include longtime regulars at the bar and younger guys arriving later to dance. It was unapologetically neighborhood-y while still giving queer people in Santa Clara and the surrounding South Bay somewhere to actually go.

That matters because San Francisco usually gets most of the attention when people talk about Bay Area gay history. Places like A Tinker’s Damn remind us that queer communities were building their own bars, friendships, relationships, and traditions well beyond the Castro.

The bar finally closed in 2014, ending roughly fifty years under the Tinker’s Damn name. At its farewell, former customers remembered first gay-bar visits, coming out, meeting partners, and friendships that had begun there—the stuff that actually makes a neighborhood bar historic.