The Edinburgh Castle in San Francisco Has Closed Down
The news of a legendary dive bar is always heartbreaking, but this one hurts a bit more.
If you were in your 20s or 30s in San Francisco at any point from the late 90s to the early 2010s, and somebody could’ve called you a “hipster”, then you most likely spent some wonderful nights at Edinburgh Castle. I mean, plenty of non-hipstery people hung out there too, but it was incredibly popular with the super skinny jeans set.
I spent a lot of time at the Castle back then. I went on dates there, took the Broke-Ass Stuart Pub Crawl there, got stood up for dates there, and had so many great nights with friends in the halcyon days of early aughts. It was even one of the first places someone recognized me and bought me a drink because they liked my work. I wrote this long, loving piece about Edinburgh Castle, and its fascinating history (think ghosts and a cranky cage-less parrot) for SFGate a few years back.
Unfortunately, that’s all over. I first heard that the Castle closed from a post by Thrillhouse Records on Instagram but I had to verify it for myself. I reached out to Tay Kim, the owner of Edinburgh Castle for over 30 years and he confirmed it. Sadly, the bank foreclosed on the bar and the building. What happens next is that the bank will auction it off and, if they sell it for more than what was owed, Tay will be able to collect the difference. I’m really hoping for this since Tay has to start over. He’s thinking beekeeping or welding, but “nothing to do with bars”. Fingers crossed they bring in some good money. In 2019, the building and bar were up for sale for almost $4 million.
Like a lot of places, the Castle never bounced back from the Pandemic. The last time I was there it was pretty busy since there were some cool bands playing, but it had been really slow all the other times I’d been there in the past few years.
I’m really gonna miss the Edinburgh Castle. It was more than just a place to drink. It was the kind of place where, on a random night you could meet the person you end up marrying. The kind of place where you could get your heart broken by one of life’s innumerable letdowns. It’s where you went to celebrate a momentous promotion and where you’d go to try to drink away the passing of a dear friend. My most recent milestone that happened there was that I reconnected with one mom my oldest friends in the world. We hadn’t been in touch since we were 14 or so and when he reached out to say he was in San Francisco, I took him for a drink at the Edinburgh Castle.
The Edinburgh Castle was a wonderful bar indeed.
Howdy! My name is Katy Atchison and I'm an Associate Editor for Broke-Ass Stuart.
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