It's become an all-too-common fate for queer bars in San Francisco, where the past decade of fast and loose Silicon Valley venture capital has created a real estate crisis of unseen scope in urban America.
Since it opened in 1966, the Stud has outlasted the shuttering of at least 159 other San Francisco bars, according to the crowdsourced map ' Lost Gay Bars of San Francisco.' It is the rare bar that has generated a legacy and reputation far greater than the sum of its parts, which is one reason why its July 3rd announcement that it may soon close, facing a 300 percent spike in rent, was as tragic as it was portentous for the state of the city's nightlife.
That makes it all the more remarkable that the Stud, a gay bar in San Francisco's South of Market (SoMa) district, has stuck around for half a century, even as it becomes harder and harder for the city's queer spaces to survive.
