A stained glass window at the Lion Pub at 2062 Divisadero.
LONGTIME LOCAL business owner Kelly Ellis has died after a long illness and his Lion Pub at 2062 Divisadero is now closed after 48 years.
The Lion Pub holds a storied place in the city’s gay history, tucked discreetly off the beaten path in a jungle of greenery at Divisadero and Sacramento. More recently, it catered to a mixed neighborhood clientele.
In a 2015 bar column headlined “Pacific Nights,” the Bay Area Reporter recalled the Lion Pub as one of three gay bars in the neighborhood. In the 1980s, it was “the domain of that now rare commodity known as the sweater queen.” But after the onset of AIDS, “The decline of the gayborhood in Pacific Heights and environs was remarkably swift.”
MORE: “Pacific Nights: The Lion Pub and other lost gay dens“
Filed under: Food, Drink & Lodging, Neighborhood History