Part of the pre-Castro, pre-corporate landscape of San Francisco’s gay nightlife, The Pit was a classic cruising bar that served the city’s leather, blue-collar, and late-night crowd during the years when queer spaces still lived largely in the shadows. Operating from the 1960s into the post-Stonewall era, it belonged to a network of unpretentious, dimly lit bars where eye contact, jukebox music, and coded language shaped the room more than décor ever could.
