This story first appeared on ebar.com April 15, 2020:
Growing up, Anthony Lopez already knew something of the bar business — his parents owned two bars, one in San Leandro and one in Hayward.
“I used to do the inventory for them, so I had some experience with that,” Lopez said.
With that in mind, when he came to San Francisco during the heady 1970s, Lopez, a gay man, had an idea when he experienced discrimination in the newly emerging gay mecca.
“I used to go to the Castro and I didn’t like the vibration, the vibes,” Lopez said. “They were discriminatory. So, I said, ‘I think I’ll open my own bar,’ because I didn’t like the way I was treated.”
Lopez’s partner, in business and in life, is Manuel Quijano. Quijano, 59, who had come to the United States from El Salvador, said that it was hard to find a space where one could feel comfortable being both Latino and gay.
“At that time, Latinos were asked for two pieces of ID in the Castro in order to get in a bar,” Quijano said. “You couldn’t see gay people even in the Mission district. It was under a cloud. You couldn’t go in the streets and hold hands. It was horrible even to get a liquor license, let alone a permit for a place of entertainment.”
To read more, go here.
John Ferrannini 