Men’s Room (San Francisco, California) — 1977–2008
Opened in 1977, the Men’s Room became a long-running fixture of San Francisco’s cruising-oriented bar scene, surviving more than three decades of cultural change, from the post-disco years through the AIDS crisis and into the 21st century. Its blunt, coded name echoed the language of earlier underground spaces, signaling a masculine, no-frills environment built around connection, anonymity, and community.
Through the 1980s and 90s, the Men’s Room was part of the city’s dense network of leather and sex-positive bars, places where eye contact and unspoken rules mattered as much as music or décor. It offered continuity during years of loss and transformation, when nightlife spaces also functioned as support systems and chosen-family gathering points.
