Members of the Scissor Sisters and Lady Gaga did drag numbers, and thousands of musicians and DJ’s performed their first shows there. Patrick Cowley, the now famous electronic music pioneer recorded an album at the Stud. The queen of San Francisco’s disco scene Sylvester sang to packed dance floors. Etta James was known in the queer community for the bawdy shows she performed at the Stud. So for that, I thank you, Stud.”įor a small gay bar, the Stud had an outsized presence in the San Francisco music scene. I watched that show and said ‘That is what I want to do.’ So I went back to Pittsburgh and started doing the craziest, sickest, weirdest Drag I could. It blew my mind to see the queens of The Stud bring such visceral, raw, dramatic energy to their performances. “We went in not knowing what to expect, but what we witnessed changed my life forever. “My college roommate and I were visiting San Francisco for spring break and his cousin told us we simply had to check out The Stud,” said Ru Paul’s Drag Race, winner Alaska. The club became an inspiration to generations of musicians, artists, and designers, both queer and straight. Over the years the Stud became a melting pot for San Francisco counterculture: hippies in the 60s, disco in the 70s, punk in the 80s, club kids in the 90s, and hipsters in the 2000’s. Muir and the other owners put a sign above the door reading “Everyone is welcome here”-a motto the bar stuck by for five-and-a-half decades. At the time, women, gender non-conforming people, and drag queens weren’t allowed in most SoMa gay bars, but the Stud set itself apart from the beginning by being open to everyone. As a transwoman she faced down the misogyny of the early gay community, to become one of the most successful nightlife entrepreneurs in the city. Muir, grandniece of naturalist John Muir, made a lasting impact on the culture of the Stud. The original owners Geoge Mason and Alexis Muir quickly realized that the cowboy-themed, macho men bar they opened was just not their cup of tea and they began catering to the queer, hippie culture that was all over San Francisco. The Stud was one of dozens of bars in the neighborhood that would later come to be known as the Leather District. The Stud opened in 1966 when the SoMa LGBT scene was booming as gay men from around the country started coming out and coming to San Francisco. “It breaks our heart to leave our historic home, but at this point we have no other choice.” But if we keep paying rent on a building that sits empty, by the end of the pandemic we’ll owe tens of thousands of dollars in debt,” announced managing Owner Rachel Ryan. “We one hundred percent support the stay-at-home orders. The country's first, cooperatively owned, LGBT venue is inviting all people whose lives were touched by the Stud to join them for an on-line, drag funeral on May 31st, to mourn the end of an era. San Francisco – Today San Francisco’s oldest LGBT bar, The Stud, announced that it will be closing down its current location after 54 years in business and 33 years at the corner of 9th and Harrison.