Spec's
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A bar/museum in North Beach, San Francisco, California. It is located at 12 William Saroyan Alley across the street from City Lights Bookstore.
[edit] History
During the 50's, Spec's was frequented predominantly by seamen. The bar was so favored by its patrons that they would often bring paintings, photographs, and other artifacts from all over the world to decorate the place, thus its semi-museum status.
At the time, there was also a strip club operating above the bar and a stairway near the bathrooms which connected the two businesses. This led to an increasingly eccentric mosaic of patronage as during the 60's Beat Generation poets and artists began mixing with the seafarers and strippers who constituted the existing crowd.
[edit] Trivia
- Spec's is the only unionized bar in San Francisco.
- A group of communists meet weekly at the bar for roundtable discussions. This group often includes San Francisco Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman.
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