Specs’ Twelve Adler Museum Cafe

What you need to know

Specs’ entrance sits in a narrow alley off Columbus Avenue. The alley is officially William Saroyan Place, though longtime regulars still call it Adler.

The History

Richard “Specs” Simmons opened the bar on April 26, 1968, his wife Sonia’s birthday. He had come out from Boston twenty years earlier, worked as a merchant marine and sheet metal worker, and tended bar at Vesuvio across the street before opening his own place. The nickname came from the glasses he wore on construction sites.

The building at 12 Adler dates to around 1850. Before Specs took it over, it had been a Chinese temple, a fishermen’s social club, a speakeasy during Prohibition, a servicemen’s bar during World War II, a bohemian hangout, and one of San Francisco’s first lesbian bars, Tommy’s Place.

Local legend has it that Specs funded the bar with royalties from the song “M.T.A.,” which became a hit for the Kingston Trio after they heard Simmons perform it.

What You’ll Find

The walls are covered floor to ceiling with artifacts collected since 1968: labor union banners, Spanish Civil War propaganda, Northwest Coast indigenous art, nautical relics, photographs of old San Francisco, a walrus appendage, and a life-sized sarcophagus carved by a former employee with Specs’ face on it. The current owners, Specs’ daughter Elly and granddaughter Maralisa, keep track of most items from memory.

The clientele is mixed. Poets reading at the bar next to walk-ins from Columbus Avenue. Longshoremen and musicians. Decades-long regulars. Thelonious Monk drank here. Herb Caen drank here.

What to Know

The bartenders are unionized and have been since 1968. They can refuse to make any drink or refuse service to anyone. Order something simple and be polite. The food menu is cheese and saltines on a tray for seven dollars.

In 1969, Specs joined some friends sailing from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The boat capsized just outside the Golden Gate Bridge around 1:30 AM. They drank gin and held up a lantern in the water until Humphrey Bogart’s former boat, the Santana, spotted them and pulled them out. The framed newspaper article is on the wall.

Specs died in 2016 after a battle with Parkinson’s. The city named the bar a Legacy Business the same year, one of nine in the first class.

What to drink

Something simple — the unionized bartenders can refuse any drink. Cheese and saltines for $7.