The Purple Onion was a celebrated cellar club in the North Beach area of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

, California, located at 140 Columbus Avenue (between Jackson and Pacific). With an intimate, 80-person setting, the club was a popular influence in local music and entertainment during the Beat era of the 1950s and '60s.

History

The Purple Onion originally opened in 1952 under the management of Keith Rockwell. His sister and brother-in-law, Virginia "Ginnie" and Irving "Bud" Steinhoff would frequently work weekends at the club until 1960 when they took over management. Bud Steinhoff managed the Purple Onion until his death in November 1983. Virginia Steinhoff continued to operate the club until 1989.

First-wave comedy and performance

Notable entertainers who either got their starts or played the California club in the 1950s and 1960s include

Bob Newhart George Robert Newhart (born September 5, 1929) is an American actor and comedian. He is known for his deadpan and slightly stammering delivery style. Newhart came to prominence in 1960 when his album of comedic monologues, ''The Button-Down Mi ...

Lenny Bruce Leonard Alfred Schneider (October 13, 1925 – August 3, 1966), known professionally as Lenny Bruce, was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist. He was renowned for his open, free-wheeling, and critical style of comedy which ...

Woody Allen Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...

, Alameda housewife

Phyllis Diller Phyllis Ada Diller (née Driver; July 17, 1917 – August 20, 2012) was an American stand-up comedian, actress, author, musician, and visual artist, best known for her eccentric stage persona, self-deprecating humor, wild hair and clothes, and ...

(making her stand-up debut in 1955),

Richard Pryor Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor Sr. (December 1, 1940 – December 10, 2005) was an American stand-up comedian and actor. He reached a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style, and is widely regarded as on ...

Maya Angelou Maya Angelou ( ; born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American memoirist, popular poet, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and ...

The Kingston Trio The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to the late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, ...

Jim Nabors James Thurston Nabors (June 12, 1930 – November 30, 2017) was an American actor, singer, and comedian, widely known for his signature character, Gomer Pyle. Nabors was discovered by Andy Griffith while working at a Santa Monica nightclub, an ...

, The Irish Rovers, and the

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—who recorded their first album, ''

The Smothers Brothers at the Purple Onion ''The Smothers Brothers at the Purple Onion'', released May 1, 1961 on Mercury Records, is the first album released by the Smothers Brothers and established their reputation as folk music satirists. The Purple Onion was a celebrated comedy and m ...

'', there.

Music venue

Tom Guido became the club's manager in 1993. Under him it became the center of San Francisco's

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scene, featuring such bands as

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, Spoiled Brats, The Trashwomen, The Makers, Tee and Thee Crumpets, The Phantom Surfers,

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, Brian Jonestown Massacre,

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, The Go-Nuts, Guitar Wolf and many others. The club closed in 1999. Tom Guido died in 2019.

Return to comedy

In 2004, the club reopened and returned to comedy. Photographer and booker

Dan Dion Daniel James Dion (born December 11, 1970) is an American photographer and comedy producer. He is best known for his location portraiture of comedians, and was the house photographer of the legendary San Francisco venue The Fillmore for twenty ...

started a weekly comedy night that featured comedians such as

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Paul Krassner Paul Krassner (April 9, 1932 – July 21, 2019) was an American author, journalist, and comedian. He was the founder, editor, and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine ''The Realist'', first published in 1958. Krassner became a key ...

, Jim Short, and

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presented the debut of

Mort Sahl Morton Lyon Sahl (May 11, 1927 – October 26, 2021) was a Canadian-born American comedian, actor, and social satirist, considered the first modern comedian. Sahl pioneered a style of social satire that pokes fun at political and current event t ...

in June 2005, and shows by

Greg Proops Gregory Everett "Greg" Proops (born October 3, 1959) is an American actor, stand-up comedian and television host. He is widely known for his guest appearances on the U.K. and U.S. versions of ''Whose Line Is It Anyway?''. He has also voiced the ...

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Margaret Cho Margaret Moran Cho (born December 5, 1968) is an American comedian, actress, LGBT social activist, and musician. She is known for her stand-up routines, through which she critiques social and political problems, especially regarding race and se ...

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, Dan Piraro, and

Judah Friedlander Judah Friedlander (born March 16, 1969) is an American actor and comedian, known for playing the role of writer Frank Rossitano on the NBC sitcom ''30 Rock''. Friedlander is also known for his role as Toby Radloff in the film '' American Splendo ...

. By 2010, the club was only running weekend shows, though these shows were usually over capacity at 100–110 people.

Closure and reopening

In September 2012, the building was sold with "no plans to rescue". The club reopened in August 2014 as Doc's Lab and hosted both music and comedy throughout the week, until its closure in February 2018. The Purple Onion name has been in use since November 2, 2012, around the corner as The Purple Onion at Kell's at 530 Jackson Street. It continues to showcase underground and Bay Area comedy acts on Wednesday and Thursday nights. The club reopened in November 2022 as Lyon & Swan, "a high-end restaurant with nightly live entertainment."https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/wine/article/eco-terreno-wine-tasting-room-17565282.php

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Purple Onion, The Music venues in San Francisco Comedy clubs in California North Beach, San Francisco Nightclubs in San Francisco 1952 establishments in California