Pour one out for the Jay’n Bee Club – at least in its current form.
Owners Steve Benazzo and Mike Perry are in the process of selling the building that houses the cherished dive bar at 20th and York. “It’s been fun, and I love it,” Benazzo confirmed over the phone. “But maybe enough is enough.”
Although the building hasn’t officially hit the market, it could fetch around $2 million, he said.
A for-sale sign was recently posted above the bar’s entrance.
Benazzo told Mission Local last week that he hopes the Jay’n Bee Club, which has been closed indefinitely for weeks, will continue as a bar and grill.
“I’m sure someone can take this and run with it,” he said on Thursday.
Perry and Benazzo took over the bar 21 years ago. In that time, it became known for its pizzas and salads. For a while, a Mexican restaurant called Marta’s Kitchen operated out of the bar.
In a 2008 episode of KQED’s Check Please, Benazzo touted his bar’s 70-year history.
“We’ve been many different things in that time,” he said on the show. “Things like a cop bar, or a fireman’s bar, an old-timer’s bar — but nowadays we’re pretty much everybody’s bar.”
But Benazzo knows one thing: Jay’n Bee will forever be cemented in his own personal history. “Most of my adult life I’ve been running this thing,” he told Mission Local.
“A thousand people who want to know what’s gonna happen, right?” he said. He paused for a moment. “Make that 1,001.”
How sad.
My parents lived up the street from there some 50 plus years ago.
My dad was a regular, so regular that my mom use to send my brother who would have been about five years old at the time to “go get dad”
That wasn’t such a good idea because my brother would end up staying there with my dad drinking Shirley Temples.
A few of us no longer live up north but, every time we visited San Francisco, we would always try to make sure we visited the Jay and Bee.
I would love to get a piece of memorabilia or the sign from the place. If possible, I would love to know how to contact the owners or to able to forward my information.
Best regards,
Christina Enriquez.