RIP Franchises of our youths

[Drunk Monk]

'Where all the lost souls came together': SF's O'Farrell Theatre strip club closes after 50 years
Staff members say goodbye to the storied strip club - and their 'extended family'
Ariana Bindman
Oct. 30, 2020Updated: Oct. 30, 2020 3:33 p.m.
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The exterior of the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre, which has closed due to the coronavirus pandemic after 50 years in business.
Jean-Marc LOUBAT/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
Like most strip clubs, the Mitchell Brothers O’Farrell Theatre is a plush, disorienting palace. Upon entry, the walls are smattered with headshots of dancers and pornographic memorabilia. The walls are mirrored; the curtains are velvet. For decades, beneath the scintillating glow of disco balls and red rotating lights, the carpeted kingdom has provided anything from nude lap dances to “flashlight shows” for San Francisco’s “weirdo” strip club clientele. And as part of its official closure, its walls have been stripped bare, and its lavish interior has been gutted.
Allegedly visited by Eric Wareheim, Trevor Noah and Justin Beiber, it was a popular destination for cult and mainstream celebrities alike. And despite just celebrating its 50th anniversary, the club’s amber-colored marquee — which advertised anything from “wild girls” to pornographic feature films — will finally dim its lights due to COVID-19. Now, the O’Farrell Theatre’s DJs and floor managers are unsure where they and their “sisters” will go next.
The Mitchell Brothers: Sinners, Saints, or Something In Between? 
Despite the fact that it was lauded as the “Carnegie Hall of sex in America” by Hunter S. Thompson, the O’Farrell Theatre has a complicated legacy. Since its inception in 1969, the former X-rated movie house has been mired in legal drama: According to author David McCumber, who wrote "X-rated: The Mitchell Brothers: A True Story of Sex, Money, and Death," its founding brothers, James and Artie Mitchell, were collectively involved in nearly 200 cases involving obscenity. They fought each one, and their victories in the courtroom set new legal precedents for pornography — subsequently protecting other forms of art from censorship.
Just three weeks after the club opened and started showing pornographic films, then-25-year-old James Mitchell was apprehended by undercover cops for “production and exhibition of obscene material.” Despite multiple arrests, the brothers brazenly continued showing pornographic movies and escaped conviction with the help of lawyer Michael John Kennedy, who successfully challenged the legal definition of obscenity. The brothers’ famous 1972 film, "Behind the Green Door" — which had a budget of $60,000 and raked in $50 million — became the second-highest grossing adult film of all time.
However, San Francisco cracked down on the adult acropolis when they shifted to live entertainment. In 1980, following the development of the “Kopenhagen” lounge, the “Ultra” room, the “Green Door” room and the “New York Live” main stage — which is where patrons could experience anything from nude lap dances to lesbian bondage acts — police conducted a raid that led to the arrest of 14 patrons and staff members. Under then-San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein, who was vehemently anti-porn, they were charged with “participating in a house of prostitution.” But when the Mitchell brothers successfully fought back in court, a win for them was a win for pornography everywhere.
"What became clear to the prosecutors — the smut smiters — was that as long as this sexually explicit material was not pandered to children or to people unwilling to see it, the public had no problem with it: To each his own. Let them have it," said their lawyer, Kennedy, in a 1999 SFGate article. "That became a very important precedent throughout the '70s and '80s for what ultimately became a national approach to pornography, which was to leave it alone."
Despite the club’s many victories against anti-porn administrations, the Mitchell family — and the business — began to unravel after the “Golden Age of Porn.” In 1991, one of the founding brothers, Jim Mitchell, shot and killed his brother, Artie Mitchell, who had been struggling with cocaine and alcohol addiction. And as recently as 2014, one daughter, Jasmine Mitchell, had been accused of facilitating a massive identity theft ring; meanwhile, their eldest son, James Mitchell, was sentenced 35 years to life in prison for murdering the mother of his child with a baseball bat in 2009.

Two scantily clad performers at the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre wait in their dressing room before they go on stage, circa 1980.
nik wheeler/Corbis via Getty Images
An Extended Family, A Second Home
The dancers, DJs, and floor managers describe themselves as an extended family, and each of them are mourning the loss of the club. Kayleigh Pierce, who performed at Mitchell’s for nearly 12 years, says that it was “where all the lost souls came together: employees, dancers, and customers. We’re all f—ked up in our own little way.” Pierce, who describes herself as a tomboy, says that the theater’s fun, familial atmosphere was why she left Crazy Horse, the club she had been working at prior to Mitchell’s. “For like five years we were drinking champagne left and right. We could go upstairs and drink for hours, go downstairs, make $1,000 from someone, go back up, and then make more money.” And, unlike some other clubs, Mitchell’s empowered dancers by treating them with respect and allowing them to set their own price points.
Another dancer, who goes by “Juliana,” left Crazy Horse and the strip clubs on Broadway for those very reasons. After finding out she was pregnant, she started working at Mitchell’s on and off at the age of 18 and stayed up until the pandemic struck. Now 35, Juliana says it’s heartbreaking to reflect on her past at the club. “We all kind of grew up there in a sense. We went from being teenagers up to no good to women with purpose. It’s a sisterhood I’ve never experienced with any other job I've ever had.” To this day, she’s still best friends with one of the dancers she met there.
The O’Farrell Theatre was Ben “Dewey” Herndon’s saving grace. When he started working there pulling shifts until 4 a.m., he was living out of his car, but eventually became the full-time afternoon DJ for six and a half years, playing everything from trap to metal.  It was there that he developed a familial relationship with the dancers. “Being a male-bodied man in your 20s and being around naked women, it’s the s—t, but after a while you're desensitized, and they're your sisters,” he says.
About a decade ago, many of the employees first met at Nite Cap, a dim, carpeted dive bar on the corner of O’Farrell and Hyde. They quickly bonded over their love of punk shows and cheap alcohol, eventually working together at the club and getting matching platypus tattoos.
Hearing about the theater’s official closure was like “losing a home,” says Ryan French “Francais,” a DJ and manager. “It was like the sick man that we were all expecting to see go. We wished we all could have been there working rather than staying at home due to COVID.” Galen Rivers, a manager who made all the set designs for their theatrical “cine-stage” shows — or themed sex shows — agrees. “It’s been such a roller coaster,” he says. “Now, it’s not a surprise.”
Nothing Amber Can Stay
Ultimately, employees knew that the club was due to eventually close — they just didn’t expect it to happen so soon. “We had known about the end for three years now,” Herndon says solemnly. “COVID was just insult to injury. We were hoping to at least get a couple more years in.” The 12,920-square-foot club made news in 2018 when it was put up for sale, asking for a purchase price of either $10 million or $39,000 per month.
Had the pandemic not occurred — and had the club’s finances maybe been better — employees would have transformed the space for Halloween with cobwebs, lasers and rotating LED lights. It was everyone’s favorite time of year, and according to Herndon, they “went all out,” but the difficulties of surviving 2020 made that celebration impossible. The club’s golden gates may be closed, but for some, O'Farrell is eternal. Its spirit lives on through the friendships of its staff members, and, like a stubborn, sordid gem, remains forever embedded in San Francisco history.
[i]Ariana Bindman is a freelance writer in the Bay Area, find her on Instagram at @ariana.bindman.[/i]

DOOM had some connections to this club. ED used to program the jukebox there. And Stacy worked right nearby when she managed Sierra Club Books. She often regaled me with tales of life there. She often saw the women that worked there on her lunch breaks. They would do this thing where they would call down from a window at the club to male passersby, telling them that someone stole their clothes and asking them to come in. 

I hope they keep the mural.