While sipping Irish coffees one recent, drizzly Capp Street afternoon, Uptown bar manager Jessica Gensley opined about someone in her life for whom she clearly cares a lot.
“He’s a grizzly old man, you know, he’s smart, a little sassy, well-worn,” she said. “Yeah, he’s an old punk.”
Gensley was talking about the bar itself. It turns 30 this year, and its staff and patrons are celebrating. One regular even donated a whole pig to roast.
After a year in which many of its shaggy peers have faded away—the Attic sold, Esta Noche sold, Lexington announced its closure, Pops spiffied up under a new owner—and the fate of Uptown was thrown into question after its longtime owner Scott Ellsworth died, the old punk’s survival into a 30th year comes as welcome news.
“I’m really proud of the situation we’re in,” said Gensley, who has worked at the Uptown for 15 years.
After Ellsworth died at 59 of a heart attack in April, Gensley along with five of her co-workers and one of Ellsworth’s close friends worked out a deal with their former boss’s family, who inherited the bar. Under the new ownership group called “Buy Your Own Damn Bar”—a frequent utterance of the legendarily opinionated Ellsworth—the group of employees would operate the bar for the family until they could buy it for themselves.
“There’s 70 years combined employment among us,” said Gensley. She says that when Ellsworth died, the bar’s staff “realized that working at the Uptown full-time or part-time was was what we wanted to do… plus sending six dive bar employees out into Mission to find work sounded too daunting.”
Gensley says that they’re planning to buy the bar within three years and are being aggressive about saving the cash. Relations with the bar’s landlord, who was is the midst of rent negotiations with Ellsworth when he died, have been mostly good. Their current lease has four years left on it, and there’s an option to renew for another five after that—with an increase in rent and some stipulations.
In order to renew their lease, the group of co-owners will have to invest in ADA compliance fixes, a new paint job, alter the bars on the window, among other modifications for the infamously rough-around-the-edges dive.
Gensley says fans of the Uptown shouldn’t expect any big, dramatic changes. “It’s about upgrading features to show off its grandeur…we’re taking a bar that’s been 30 years in the making and trying to keep that legacy alive,” she said.
Of course, there’s been a bar at the corner of 17th and Capp for longer than 30 years. Gensley believes it was a bar since the building was built following the 1906 earthquake. It was actually a favorite hangout of Ellsworth before he bought it in 1984.
As cook a at 17th Street’s Rite Spot, Ellsworth would come to the bar, then a popular destination for lesbians called Macantes, following his shift and feel instinctively at home. (The Uptown’s wood bar is still engraved with the word “KITO,” a portmanteau of the dive’s former owners, two women named Kim and Toni.) Gensley said the corner style bar reminded him of neighborhood bars he frequented in his hometown of Chicago.
When Ellsworth bought the bar he wanted it to be a place where political debate could flourish and “everyone could always voice their opinion,” said Gensley, who says the bar has been a frequent hang out of everyone from administrative aids of City Hall politicians to service employees. In the only print add the bar ever bought, Ellsworth dubbed his business “the Large Intestine of New Bohemia.”
Like everywhere else in the Mission, life at the Uptown is changing. Gensley says she’s seen early evening cocktails draw a new crowd of young neighborhood startup employees into an old favorite haunt of night owls. She says the Uptown welcomes them in with open arms.
“We want to be relevant to the changing neighborhood,” said Gensley. “It’s about how to make new people comfortable without alienating existing customers.”
That means fixing the upholstery, but not getting rid of the grungy art. It means being friendly, but staying opinionated. It means having the bar feel like “an extension of your living room,” no matter what you’re paying in rent.
“If I could have my wish for this bar it would be to see this place as an oasis in time of upheaval,” said Gensley. “I hope it stays vibrant and important without losing its character… or the characters.”
To celebrate its 30th year, the Uptown’s having a party. On Friday, December 26 the bar will hold a birthday reunion party from 6-10 p.m. and anyone wearing Uptown t-shirts pays 1984 prices for booze. Saturday, December 27, the bar will host a whole pig barbeque with musical guests Mindi Hadan, Douglas Katelus and Ivy & Devon. And, on Sunday, December 28 at 6 p.m., the bar will host a literary salon with local writers and poets. All events are free and open to the public.
