Before rainbow crosswalks and tech bros in mesh shorts, the White Swallow held court as one of San Francisco’s early haunts where the cocktails were stiff, the crowd was looser, and the name alone did half the flirting for you. Like many bars of the era, it used the quiet code of a color and a bird—a sly wink to those in the know, and completely harmless to anyone who wasn’t. It was how queer nightlife survived the raids, the rulebooks, and the moral watchdogs, all while building a world of its own.
