San Francisco Chinatown Landmark Red's Place to Close: The Neighborhood's Oldest Bar Ends a Run of More Than 60 Years
Red's Place, the longtime bar at 672 Jackson Street in Chinatown in San Francisco, San Francisco County, California, will close permanently, ending more than six decades in business. Open since 1963, Red's Place has described itself as the oldest bar in Chinatown and has served as a gathering place for generations of the Chinatown community.
Owner Jerry Chan announced the news in a teaser for an interview with NBC Bay Area posted on Instagram. “San Francisco, Red's is closing,” Chan said. NBC Bay Area reported the bar could close as early as the end of October. Chan did not share a reason for the closure.
The bar was bought in 1990 by Jerry Chan's parents, Herman and Lisa Chan, and has been run by the family since. According to the bar's website, the building has a long history: it housed a barber shop in the late 1800s, followed by a cigar store and a saloon. The bar's basement, now closed to patrons, still holds teller booths dating back to the neighborhood's underground gambling past. Red's has also taken part in Chinatown's annual celebrations, with a firecracker show on Jackson Street.
In a 2017 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Jerry Chan reflected on the city's changes and said he was committed to keeping the bar open. “I'm still here,” he said. “This city is changing rapidly, and this is one thing we don't want to lose.”
(GSM, based on reporting by the New York Post and NBC Bay Area)
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：旧金山华埠龙门牌楼（资料图）。作者 Ilkka Simomaa，CC BY 4.0，来源 Wikimedia Commons。Photo: The Dragon Gate in San Francisco's Chinatown (file photo), by Ilkka Simomaa, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
