The Castro neighborhood will be seeing another post-COVID bar resurrection as QBar is slated to reopen its doors November 8. The bar has been closed since before the pandemic due to a fire in the building that houses it.
As the Bay Area Reporter previously reported, QBar at 456 Castro Street shuttered after a 2019 fire that affected four businesses on the marquee 400 block of Castro. The cause of the fire — which led to the closure of Osaka Sushi and the Body clothing store — was never determined. (The fourth business, Cafe Mystique, reopened promptly despite some damage.)
The reopening of QBar means all four spaces affected by the fire are now open. The Body clothing store is now a convenience store of the same name, and Fratelli Pizza replaced Osaka Sushi, as the B.A.R. previously reported.
QBar — which was remodeled in the interim — had initially teased a reopening before Pride 2023 and then, after its final inspection could not take place in time, a September 2023 reopening, according to gay co-owner Cip Cipriano. After that reopening failed to materialize, Cipriano stated October 4, 2023, "We won't announce a date until we have everything completely done" and subsequently stopped returning B.A.R. requests for comment. He did not return multiple requests for comment for this report.
Hoodline first reported on the reopening October 31.
According to a post on the venue's Facebook page, "the new interior has reimagined QBar as a dark black, industrial underground space closed off from the outside world. Windows have been replaced with solid metal doors or boarded up to preserve the mystery of what lies within. Customers will enter a dark hallway plastered with posters of past QBar events, a nod to the bar's past as you travel into its future. The bar itself remains in the same location, the original granite bar top preserved."
The post continued that the owners Cipriano and John Bellemore, and general manager Christian Gabriel, "plan to revive several of the bar's most popular parties as well as offer brand new programming."
These parties of yore included Booty Call Wednesdays, "a staple of San Francisco nightlife hosted by local drag celebrity Juanita MORE!," the release stated, as well as "the longest running Tuesday night party for queer women, femmes, trans-masc and a wide variety of gender expressions, weekly hip-hop celebration BUMP, Latino Sunday fiesta Gigante, and rotating weekend events celebrating pop and dance music genres."
MORE! didn't immediately return a request for comment on whether she will continue to host the weekly event.
There's also some new art in the space, the post stated.
"Past the bar, bathroom space has been significantly expanded, and a wall of painted, postered, and graffitied sheet metal lines the hallway, an original piece by Bay Area mixed media artist Optimist Williams," the post stated. "A focus on art installations continues in the front room, which was once a long ago smoking patio. Giant woodblock paintings of old Muni bus tickets labeled with the birthdays of iconic San Franciscans adorn the wall ... Across from that is a giant mural of the Golden Gate Bridge, hand constructed using QBar's old wooden happy hour 2-4-1 tokens, and a photo tribute of historic images from LGBTQ San Francisco history cover where window seating once allowed customers to peer out to the street and onlookers to peer inside."
The post stated it plans to return to its place as an "all inclusive venue for queer and trans people of color in the neighborhood" and that the owners and manager "will continue the bar's mission to serve as an all-inclusive space while catering specifically to queer, trans and communities of color."
A time for the reopening was not given.
Badlands, at 4121 18th Street, closed several months after QBar and reopened last year, also after a remodeling.
A new nightclub called Pink Swallow is expected to replace the old Harvey's at 500 Castro Street; last the B.A.R. reported the new owners — a group of Beaux management and staff — are still in the process of getting permits from the city.
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