Tommy’s Place and 12 Adler were lesbian bars. They were butches and femmes in other words, lesbians. Some of the women wore dresses and skirts, which was the norm, but a good number were in slacks and blazers and had short, masculine haircuts. At the time, women weren’t allowed to tend bar in San Francisco unless they were the owners, which meant 12 Adler and Tommy’s Place were owned by women.Īnd you’d probably notice the way the patrons looked.
If you went downstairs to 12 Adler Place, you’d notice the bartenders were also women, which was a rarity. At first glance, it looked like any other San Francisco bar, but if you looked closer, you’d realize there were more women than men in the establishment. Upstairs at Tommy’s, tables for two lined both walls, a 15-seat bar was built into the far corner, and framed pictures of women hung on the walls. more than two dozen patrons were either at the main bar, located at 529 Broadway, or downstairs at the connected 12 Adler Place, which opened onto Columbus Avenue. September 8, 1954, was a Wednesday-likely not the busiest day of the week at Tommy’s Place, a bar in San Francisco-but by nine p.m.
