Cross Masonic to the other corner. The Drogstore Cafe opened here in the late 1960s, after the Blue Unicorn (the neighborhood’s first coffee house, opened 1963) had closed. It took over a former Victorian drugstore. The original pharmacist’s wooden drawers were still set into the walls behind the counter.
The Drogstore mattered because of what it was, not what it served. By 1966 and 1967 the Haight needed places to gather: coffee, a chair, music, no rush. The Drogstore, the I/Thou Coffee Shop up the street at 1736 Haight, and Tracy’s Donuts at 1569 Haight were the late-night anchors. People moved between them all night.
The Diggers, the radical street-theater collective that gave out free food in the Panhandle and ran a 24-hour free store on Page Street, used these cafes as message boards. Drug warnings, lost roommates, missing daughters from Iowa: all of it went up on the walls of the Drogstore. The building is still there. The cafe is long gone.