New Queer Bar Coming Soon to the Mission

The mothership will be landing soon if the team behind Mother Bar—which describes itself as “a little womxn and femme-centered queer bar”—opens on schedule. The new watering hole is expected to open at 16th and Valencia streets in mid-January. The owners put out a call on Instagram for bartenders and door staff on Sunday.

The owner, Malia Spanyol, also operates the 15-year-old Potrero Hill roadhouse Thee Parkside, Woodenman Muay Thai boxing gym in SoMa and La Lucha Coffee Bar. She told The Standard that she's just waiting on the transfer of licenses at this point. If all goes as planned, she'll take possession of the space Jan. 1.

While Spanyol requested that we not specify the exact address, considering the spate of anti-LGBTQ+ violence nationwide, the site was formerly home to a very well-known queer bar.

Mother Bar will be located near Jolene's—one of the few women and femme-centered queer bars in the city. The number changes depending on whom you ask—but as The Standard noted earlier this year, the lack of gathering spaces for queer women nationwide, and even in San Francisco, is well-documented. The Lexington Club, a beloved lesbian bar in the Mission, shuttered in 2014.

"People like me have been without a home since the Lexington closed," Spanyol said. "We have club nights and community bars, but we don't have our own space. I think that it's time."