When I started working here, we had one bartender who was a former empress of the Imperial Council of San Francisco named Mae. She had a glass eye, and she'd roll it down the bar saying, 'looking at you', or drop it in somebody's drink.
Despite the many transformations San Francisco and the Tenderloin has gone through since the bar opened its doors in 1987, Aunt Charlie's really hasn't changed much at all. It's still a tiny, campy, sliver of a dive, where the floor is carpeted, the walls are lined with mirrors, and a giant neon 'Aunt Charlie's' sits above the bar.
The performers don't even have a backstage; it's more of a storage area with a board laid over the trash cans so people can sit. Which is to say, Aunt Charlie's is absolutely perfect.
When he bought the bar in 1987, the Tenderloin still had tons of gay bars, and Erkelens already owned a few of them, including the New Bell Saloon, the P.S. Bar and Restaurant and the Railway Express Saloon.
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