Li Po Cocktail Lounge has operated at 916 Grant Avenue, between Washington and Jackson, since 1937. It is named for Li Bai, the eighth-century Tang dynasty poet known for writing about wine. The entrance sits under a large red lantern, built to look like a stone grotto.
Inside, the room stays dark at any hour. A gilded Buddha shrine sits behind the bar. The house drink is the Chinese Mai Tai, mixed from a recipe the bar keeps private and served cold and strong. In the 1950s, when Grant Avenue connected Chinatown to the North Beach literary scene, Jack Kerouac and other Beat writers drank here. Both Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg reference the bar in their writing.
A staircase at the back leads to a basement room that was once part of Chinatown’s underground passages. Li Po is cash-preferred. It opens in the early afternoon and stays open late.