Welcome to Drinking Companion, a column about our favorite bars in San Francisco. Each month, we’ll be toasting the places that inspire us to get dressed, go out, and get a drink or two. Next up: Lone Palm.
Audrey Hepburn’s Funny Face on the TV. Yo La Tengo’s “Center of Gravity” on the hi-fi. Cheetos and Doritos in my bowl. Trumer Pils in my glass. Pen in hand. Thoughts in my mind: Lone Palm is always a good idea.
This cocktail bar on 22nd Street between Guerrero and Valencia is the bartender’s bar; an industry favorite. Outside, its parklet provides a sunny venue for after-work libations and shag inhalations.
Inside, though, it’s always nighttime at Lone Palm.
On the mirror-lined wall behind the bar, a good many bottles of liquor (and a lava lamp among them) are illuminated by neon blue and pink lights. Art deco pendant lights with pathetic yield are aided by votives glowing along the long wooden bar and on every table. These tables, of varying heights and sizes, are topped with starchy white bistro tablecloths. On the opposite wall, a three-dimensional Egyptian mural. Cumulatively, the vibe is somewhere between midcentury Morocco and mid-cocaine-boom Miami.
Jane Seabrook and her then-husband Mark Green opened Lone Palm in 1991. At the time, Green owned a nursery and tropical plant dealership, the Palm Broker, across the street — he also planted the palm that stood outside the bar for 30 years, ‘til it was hacked down in 2021 due to rot. (A stumpier and equally companionless tree now stands in its place). Before Seabrook, 3394 22nd Street for 90 years was an Egyptian-themed bar called Mirage (hence the decor). It’s by no means a cutty location, though something about it feels like a well-kept secret. It offers something rare in our gilded city: A generous serving of privacy without a drop of exclusivity.
On a given weeknight, the clientele runs the gamut: a rancher discussing how his tween daughters will ring in spring break with a Friday night cattle branding; a college student complaining about online portals to a patron older than the building itself; a fleet of cheery coworkers, tech backpacks in tow, take over three tables; a Gen X couple indulging in a PG-13 public makeout sesh (yes!). First dates here are a given (guilty), but don’t let that deter you from letting Lone Palm be the venue for a third, fourth, or hundredth.
Like most bars outside the immediate vicinity of offices, Lone Palm’s crowd deepens with the night. I certainly wouldn’t dissuade you from going during peak hours. Maybe it’s all the tablecloths, but at its busiest, it never sounds shrill. If you close your eyes, you can imagine the hum of conversation and the warbling of the speaker sounding exactly the same some 70 years ago, minus the Yo La. (Alas, it wouldn’t smell as it did 70 years ago, though it’s worth noting Lone Palm was known to be a smoking-indoors speakeasy.)
Surely, this is the place to go if you want to hide out. But it’s also a place to be known: Lone Palm is a magnet for regulars, with good reason. The bartenders know many of the patrons by name, lending a neighborly charm that immediately disarms Lone Palm’s noir appearance. Somewhere between a dive and a cocktail lounge, it’s all swank high life without the high pricing. Beer, wine, and cocktails will run you a perfectly average rate, certainly not a one-and-done kind of place, and, of course, the snack mix is free. They have no set menu, but can pull out any of the classics.
Readers of Drinking Companion may have deduced by now that I indulge shamelessly in bar eavesdropping, and Lone Palm provides the perfect setting for it. Everybody here has a story.
Yesterday, as I headed to the bar to hear a story or two, I felt a tinge of guilt for not engaging in a “healthier” after work activity like sound bathing or coffee colonics. Today, as I write this, I dread the sterility of the yoga class I’m soon to attend, where very few in that class of forty-odd San Franciscans will deviate from my precise demographic, and where community, such as it is, exists in a vacuum. Sometimes, the unhealthy choice of a pint, a bowlful of Doritos, and an oversharing barmate is also the more human choice.
Slip behind those black curtains into Lone Palm’s time-warping oasis sometime and see for yourself. Namaste.
Go if you like: Alfred Hitchcock, cat statues, American traditional tattoos
Ask for: A martini
Leave: The light of day prematurely
Avoid if you want: A see-and-be-seen vibe
Lone Palm is open 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. every damn day.
