When I asked my mother Anne about her memories about Finocchio’s, she gave a low chuckle and murmured, “your father and I were kicked out of Finocchio’s”. The story goes that my parents met on a blind date in the late 1950s. A group of six went out for a day of sailing on the San Francisco Bay, followed by dinner in the City. Copious amounts of alcohol may have been consumed. They ended up at Finocchio’s, where they were politely asked to leave for being too loud.
Finocchio’s opened in 1929 as a speakeasy called the 201 Club at 406 Stockton in the Financial District[1]. When Prohibition[2] ended in 1933 the club moved upstairs and founder Joe Finocchio renamed the club “Finocchio’s”. He introduced a drag show where 16 performers did four shows a day, six days a week.
Female impersonators existed as far back as 1870, with a man named Paul Vernon arriving on a San Francisco stage wearing lacy gowns and women’s wigs. In 1900 there was a bar called the Dash: an openly gay bar with female impersonators which remained open for eight years before being forcibly shut down. While not exclusively a gay nightclub, the original Finocchio’s was the first place in 1930’s San Francisco where gay men could go and feel safe. But the show became so popular that, in 1936, it moved to the bigger venue above Enrico’s Café at 506 Broadway in North Beach[3] and attracted both gay and heterosexual patrons.
The show at Finocchio’s set itself apart from other local female impersonater acts because of the incredible talent of its performers who were an equal mix of gay and straight men. Not only were the female impersonators beautiful to look at, but they could sing, dance and do comedy. At it’s height in the 1950s, the show attracted Hollywood celebrities like Bob Hope, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, Barbara Streisand and Elizabeth Taylor. There is a story that after having seen the show with his then girlfriend Ava Gardner, Howard Hughes went back to the club to meet up with one of the performers and turned into an extended relationship.
Not to get raided, the rule was that all performers had to arrive and leave the club in men’s attire. It was briefly shut down during World War II for selling alcohol to the military outside the authorized hours of sale, and the ban was lifted only after Finocchio agreed that military personnel would only be served between 5pm and midnight.
It was a family run business, with both of Finocchio’s wives managing the club. When Finocchio divorced his first wife, she still owned half the club and barred Wife #2 from entering. She continued to run the club after Finocchio’s death in 1986. When she died, Wife #2 took over management. Finocchio’s finally closed its doors on November 27, 1999 after 63 years. Lawrence Ferlighetti[4] was quoted as saying, “What a drag.”[5]
[1] Financial District: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4109
[2] James “Sunny Jim” Rolph and Prohibition: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=5365 [3] North Beach: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=5026 [4] Lawrence Ferlinghetti: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4625[5] The site where Finnochio’s stood, at 506 Broadway, was originally the site of the first City Jail that burned down in the 1906 Earthquake and Fires.
