San Francisco Chronicle (Sunday)
Infamous strip club could be resurrected
Once was called ‘Carnegie Hall of public sex’
Four years after closing the O’Farrell Theatre, the Mitchell Brothers’ infamous strip club that Hunter S. Thompson once called the “Carnegie Hall of public sex in America,” may be resurrected as a new adult entertainment venue.
On June 25, a consultant for the property’s owner filed a conditional use application to “reopen an adult entertainment (venue) in a former adult entertainment venue” at 895 O’Farrell St.
The application comes nearly five years after the property sold for $9 million, having been marketed as a development site zoned for a 130-foot building. At the time, the marketing materials said that the property could accommodate a building with 339 housing units.
The buyer, O’Farrell Place LLC, however, never filed plans to develop the property, and the strip club closed in 2020. It was briefly listed for $12 million in 2022 but failed to find a buyer. More recently, the Corcoran Group brokerage put it on the market again, this time with the price slashed to $4.95 million. The listing for the property now says a deal is pending.
In the conditional use application, consultant David Villa-Lobos said reopening the strip club would “create significant employee roles at multiple levels of income,” as well as “increased tax revenue for the city through liquor, food sales, and city business taxes.” The application states that it would cost $2.5 million to renovate the 12,000-squarefoot building and bring it up to seismic safety standards.
The proposal “re-establishes a venue created by the Mitchell Brothers, famed pornography producers,” the application states, adding that it would create increased “pedestrian movement” and “revenue for neighborhood businesses.”
In an interview with the Chronicle, Villa-Lobos declined
to comment on the plan.
“The only thing I can tell you is the building has fallen into disrepair,” he said. “We are fixing it up and cleaning it up.”
In October, the Department of Building Inspection opened an “abandoned property” case against the property after a complaint was filed alleging that “the building is neglected and left for vagrants and individuals to conduct illegal activities.”
“Drug use is common and assaults are done upon individuals who come close to those who set up tents there,” the complaint reads. “The building needs a complete cleanup.”
Chris Schulman, executive director of the Lower Polk Community Benefit District, suggested that the reincarnation of a palace of adult entertainment might not be, in real estate jargon, “the highest and best use” for the site.
“The O’Farrell Theatre as a strip club should remain a memory from yesteryear,” Schulman said. “With its proximity to transit and neighborhood amenities, housing with ground floor commercial is the best use for this site.”
Opened in 1969 as an Xrated movie theater by Jim and Artie Mitchell, the theater later transitioned to a notorious strip club that managed to stay open
despite frequent police raids. It became a tourist attraction after the Mitchell Brothers directed the pornographic film “Behind the Green Door,” which featured Ivory Soap model Marilyn Chambers. Made for $60,000, the film grossed $30 million.
The theater received more national press in 1991 when Jim Mitchell shot and killed his brother Artie over a business dispute. The trial was heavily covered in the national media, including by gonzo writer Hunter S. Thompson, a friend of the Mitchells who had worked at the theater as night manager in the summer of 1985 while researching a possible book about pornography.
While the group looking to reopen the theater has applied for a conditional use authorization, it’s unclear whether they need one, given that the new use would be consistent with the previous one, according to city planning staff. While the previous business closed more than three years ago — the amount of time that typically triggers the need for a conditional use authorization — some of that time wouldn’t count because the city was under the public health emergency prompted by the pandemic.