Downtown SF bar shuttered by street crime is being reborn

When the Mid-Market cocktail bar Mr. Smith’s closed in late 2019, its owner bluntly blamed drug dealing outside his door for scaring away potential revelers. Now, five years later, the shuttered venue is finally reopening, trading gin mojitos and a dance floor for experimental music.

Partnering with Market Street Arts, San Francisco-grown chamber music duo The Living Earth Show has taken over the space and dubbed it the Roar Shack. They plan to host a series of “boundary-pushing” performances with a range of collaborators over the next 10 months and their first show will be “an audiovisual love letter to San Francisco,” pairing video projections of the Bay Area with field recordings and soothing instrumentation.   

“One of our goals is to use music as an insight for exploration, where you can hear something you’ve never heard before, and then hear the world differently,” said percussionist Andy Meyerson, cofounder of TLES, along with guitarist Travis Andrews. 

The old bar’s resurrection comes as part of the Mid-Market Foundation’s efforts to turn Market Street into an arts center, complete with block parties, a paid busker program, and free rent or grants for small businesses or artists. (The Living Earth Show received $25,000 from Market Street Arts.)

TLES’s run will bring what Meyerson describes as “risky” art — attendees can expect avant-garde music, visual pageantry, and interactive elements — in an area that has suffered from corporate flight, residential leasing malaise, and tough street conditions in recent years. 

Max Young, the owner of the building at 34 7th St., and former owner of Mr. Smith’s bar, said he’s thrilled to finally have new tenants. The worst of the drug dealing, he noted, has moved up the street. 

“These guys are dynamic and excited and a little crazy in all the right ways,” Young said of TLES. “It’s been a long haul to get anyone back in there. Slowly but surely we’re starting to see some sprouts of life in the Mid-Market area, and that’s music to my ears, pun intended.”  

Each performance will feature a new collaborator, with contributions from drag queen Honey Mahogany and contemporary artists like M. Lamar and Samuel Carl Adams, and will “marry space, music, and performance — and it’s going to look different every show,” Meyerson said. 

Tickets will be sold using a “pay what you can” system, ranging from $1 to $100. Meyerson wants audience members to feel like they’re witnessing the artistic development process in action. 

“We want San Francisco to be a place where culture is created as much — or more than — it’s consumed,” he said. 

That challenge feels personal for the The Living Earth Show, whose members have spent a significant amount of time creating and performing music in other parts of the U.S. and the world. Their first idea was setting up shop in “an empty Walgreens every month,” according to Meyerson, but when Market Street Arts proposed taking over Mr. Smith’s, it felt like kismet. (It was actually the first bar in the city Andrews visited.) 

The venue’s new name — Roar Shack — is a play on Rorschach testing, and an homage to the experimental nature of the music to be performed. 

As for the street’s conditions and how they’ve changed since Mr. Smith’s glory days, Meyerson said the location feels safe, and that “Urban Alchemy has done a fantastic job of making the area outside the space feel comfortable and welcoming.” 

The first Roar Shack show on Sept. 20 is sold out. Its second show will take place on Friday, Oct. 18, followed by monthly shows through June 2025. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.; performances start at 7.