San Francisco’s Gold Dust Lounge, the Union Square drinking establishment that is being evicted from its current Powell Street home, is closing Wednesday night.
But not forever, according to Lee Houskeeper, a publicist for the bar.
The bar’s owners, Jim and Tasio Bovis, plan to recreate the Gold Dust Lounge piece by piece in a larger space in Fisherman’s Wharf, he said.
Houskeeper said he cannot yet disclose the exact location, for which a lease is still in the works.
He said “we don’t expect a problem,” but said he could not say exactly where it will be until the ink on the lease dries.
“There’s a lot of moving parts,” Houskeeper said.
Work to be done includes stripping the existing space of its furnishings and decorations and reinstalling the items in the new space.
The process, which will get under way Thursday, is expected to take about four months, according to Houskeeper.
“I think people are grateful that the place is going to exist … and that the Bovises are going to spend all this time to recreate the thing that they love,” Houskeeper said of the bar’s loyal patrons.
Fans of the establishment created a grassroots movement in support of the bar that ultimately failed to keep it in its current location.
In the meantime, the Bovis family will set up a temporary Gold Dust Lounge in a back room at Lefty O’Doul’s, which it also owns.
Wednesday afternoon, throngs of tipplers crowded the bar at 247 Powell St. to take in one last drink–or several–underneath the cherub-graced ceiling as Johnny Z and the Camaros, the revolving four-piece band that performs daily at the bar, filled the already buzzing space with music.
Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, who had supported the effort to save the lounge since word of its eviction broke in January and whose district includes both Union Square and Fisherman’s Wharf, spoke to the midday carousers to formally announce the bar’s move.
“Good things in life don’t always last forever,” Chiu said of the bar, which the Bovises have managed for 47 years.
In honor of its nearly half-century of operation, Chiu, on behalf of the city, declared Wednesday “Gold Dust Lounge Day” and presented the Bovises with a proclamation from the city recognizing the bar as one of “the last of the old-time cocktail lounges in San Francisco.”
Chiu noted that the bar’s new location in Fisherman’s Wharf will be only “a cable car ride away” and said, “the saloon doors will keep swinging and the Gold Dust will live on forever.”
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