This might be the most adult bar in the Castro (in every sense)

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Until last week, I’d never taken a sip of an old-fashioned while staring at a million-year-old fossilized clam. Nor had I finished a drink while looking at a hand-labeled “female therapeutic massager” from 1910.

But in addition to well-thought-out cocktails and stylish seating, Lobby Bar in the Castro contains a veritable museum of LGBTQ+ curios and other objets d’arts in glass vitrines. Granted, the early-20th-century vibrator looked like something used to inflict pain rather than pleasure, but as a decorative motif, it sure beats wood laminate and subway tiles.

A narrow, speakeasy-style venue on the ground floor of the boutique Castro Hotel, Lobby Bar stands out from its neighbors. The Castro, a party zone to its very marrow, has no shortage of high-octane drinks and bars with high-volume pop girlies on the sound system. But among the gayborhood’s prodigious consumption of vodka sodas and frozen margaritas, there are few places to enjoy a genuine craft cocktail along with the ability to speak at a conversational volume. And Lobby Bar is most definitely one of them. 

Plenty of spots in the Castro are adult-themed — in the sense you’re thinking — but none is this grown-up. Just look at the beverage list, which contains 12 cocktails, plus three low-ABV and three alcohol-free drinks, all $16 or $17. Owing to an abundance of honey and demerara sugar, many of them run sweet, but there’s a counterweight in the conspicuous use of spices like ginger and cinnamon, plus various amari and botanicals like rose water. 

Among the finest are the D-E-Rye Hire (rye, bourbon, Amaro CioCiaro, sweet vermouth, and both Angostura and chocolate bitters) and low-proof Salt of the Earth (Cynar, cucumber, salt, lemon, and simple syrup). They share nothing in common, yet each made me pause while reading the blurbs that accompany a vintage record from pioneering Harlem Renaissance-era drag king Gladys Bentley.

The drinks are more complex than they appear. For example, the house-made coffee liqueur in Lobby Bar’s espresso martini steeps for a week, while the ginger in the ginger simple syrup is cold-pressed daily.

This is the bar’s second iteration. After opening in 2022, it was purchased last year by Grace Huntley, a tech executive and trans woman who relaunched it in February with a fresh menu and a collection of artwork and historical pieces. By Huntley’s admission, she bought Lobby Bar on a whim while having a drink there last October, after the Castro Street Fair. “I went to the restroom, saw it was for sale, put in an offer — and they accepted it,” she says. 

She used to run a food blog, but this is her first foray into the world of bars and nightlife. Stepping back, she recognizes that the acquisition wasn’t entirely a spur-of-the-moment decision; she had long wanted to address a perceived lack of trans-friendly spaces in the area. “If we do get a bar, it’s often a dive bar,” Huntley says. “I thought we deserved one of the prettiest bars in the Castro.” 

Still, it’s hard to see Lobby Bar as an exclusively trans or queer venue, either in vibe or clientele. It’s first and foremost a spot for good drinks, which can be enjoyed along with burgers, a trio of empanadas, and waffles made from the gluten-free Brazilian cheese bread pão de queijo, a nod to the years Huntley spent in São Paulo. Then there’s the quirky collection, which is growing in tandem with the bar’s cred in the Castro: The Gladys Bentley record, for example, was sent by a visitor from Argentina. Add all this up, and Lobby Bar is one of the most distinct spots in the Castro. The people who have come in are aware it’s a place for everyone, Huntley says, but “it’s just an opportunity to have a great time.”