Changes Afoot at The Transfer

All you scenesters have probably noticed that changes are afoot at The Transfer - Frisco Disco got booted, Sno-Drift has moved to UndergroundSF, and Joshua J ended Big Top there when he started M4M at UndergroundSF. In addition, I've heard that general manager Yasser was fired a few weeks ago. So, you might be wondering what's up over at that grubby little dive of a club?

According to a source within the industry familiar with The Transfer and owner Greg Bronstein, the closing of Jet to expand it into the next door space on Market has caused Bronstein to turn his attention to his other properties (he also owns The Bar on Castro and Lime), and he wasn't too happy with what he saw at The Transfer. Apparently his intention is to make it "more gay," and to try and bring its cash flow up to the same level as The Bar on Castro (which reportedly brings in multiple thousands of dollars a day gross). Given that The Transfer has a crappy sound system, and is a tiny, uncomfortable dive bar in a bad location, I wonder how it will ever meet the same standards as The Bar, but then it's not my business, either.

One of the more interesting manifestations of Bronstein's attempts to remake The Transfer can be seen in a recent ad for the bar in Gloss, which goes like this:

NEWS FLASH
Being Laid Off Doesn't Mean You Can't Get Laid At The Transfer
"I didn't know you could check out cute bartenders, dance to hip hop, and drink $1 drinks all at the same bar," says Bon Qui Qui

So, in an attempt to revitalize The Transfer as a gay bar, Bronstein is reaching out to cheap, unemployed fags who are into hip-hop, and has chosen someone whose name translates to something like "good who who" as a spokesperson? Yep, works for me.

Bar Review: The Transfer

The Transfer, as befits a bar at the crossroads of a MUNI bus and underground line, suffers from something of an identity crisis. Originally the last stop for the hungry ghosts that prowled the Castro at all hours of the day and night, a place so dismal that the one time I entered to use the ATM I felt like I had been sucked down into a Virgilian Hades, the bar was bought about two and a half years ago by Castro entertainment and hospitality mogul Greg Bronstein. He spruced it up, cleaned out the cobwebs, put a cheeky graffiti mural on the back wall, and installed real windows that let in the sunshine and chased the vampires away. The manager at the time, Shawn, had a great relationship with a number of local promoters, and thus Bus Station John established a base in the Castro with his Double Dutch Disco parties, Cock Block appeared for the girls, and there was a steady stream of party nights that transformed The Transfer into a new bar full of hip young things. Then, several months ago, Bronstein sold the bar, fired Shawn, and the whole identity of the bar was brought into question. Ask a gay guy about it and he might say “Oh, isn’t that a straight bar now,” while a straight guy would probably say “Oh, isn’t that a gay bar?” Bus Station John still does Double Dutch Disco parties there every first Sunday, but the bar also hosts bar nights for Mission hipsters riding fixies, and it looks like Cock Block is moving on to Fat City. As for the other parties, they’ve come and gone so quickly that they never had a chance establish themselves or even pull up the bar’s reputation with their own. So what kind of bar is it? Depends on the day of the week and month, it seems.

The bar itself rally has little to distinguish it – there’s a bar, and a pool table, some bench seating built around the pool table like you’d find in any gay bar, some tables and tall chairs for perching, and filthy, filthy bathrooms. A lot of money and effort has gone into the DJ setup and on my last visit, during Refuge by the Staple crew (which is also moving on to other venues), there was a nice set of Mackie speakers for sound. But I don’t understand how this bar turns into a dance space, or if it really even does. Without moving the pool table the dance space is smaller than UndergroundSF, and there’s not much in the way of seating beyond the bar itself on the other side of the room. Move the pool table and the space opens up, but all the real action here seems to be at the bar. So, is it a bar or a dance club? It’s definitely the former, and wants to be the latter, but I haven’t seen it take off yet.

This bar is three blocks from my apartment and yet I’ve rarely set foot inside because I have no idea what’s going on with it. If I want an easy drink there’s the Pilser at equal distance, with a back patio that’s much nicer than sitting inside when the weather’s good. If I want to go dancing there are plenty of other options, though they might be further away. So what does The Transfer have to offer that other bars don’t? I dunno, if you all have an answer, let me know.

Bar Review: Jet on Market

Jet is in the space once occupied by The Detour, a fading leather bar that had definitely seen better days. The interior has undergone a total rehab, and is super-slick: black patent leather wall, ergonomic foam-formed bench seating on the back wall, cabaret-style seating in the front with a stage (where I've been told you can sometimes find go-go dancers), and plenty of mirrored surfaces. The most amazing bit of interior design is the stainless-steel wall of lightbulbs that goes up behind the bar and onto the ceiling. This creates a really interesting optical illusion in which the back wall seems to tower about sixteen feet high, when in fact it's a fairly low ceiling. It makes the space seem much bigger, and overall the vibe is very lounge-sophisticated.

I'd heard that Greg Bronstein, the owner of Jet, had plans to make it a "hip-hop lounge," and that was certainly what we heard coming through the system when we came into the bar. I'm not a big fan of hip-hop, but I'm especially not into the R&B style of hip-hop with its overly-emotive vocal stylings. In a bar this can be especially difficult to deal with since the vocals compete with the ability to have a conversation, and when you get into the more aggressive beats, or songs with layer upon layer of vocal tracks, it just becomes too much. Though we took advantage of the two-for-one drink specials, I was more than ready to leave after my first drink.

For a Friday night after 9PM there weren't many people in the bar, maybe a dozen older guys, a couple younger guys with their hags, and a small group of lesbians out and about. All seemed to be stopping in on their way someplace else, and I didn't see many signs that they were settling into the space for a long night of drinking and carousing. When we went to The Bar on Castro afterwards, in contrast, the place was packed with lots of guys and girls who were obviously there to have their good time for the night.

In sum, Jet is a fabulous space in need of a different musical vibe. I don't know why Bronstein decided that the Castro needed a hip-hop lounge; perhaps there is an attempt here to pull in a greater degree of diversity than the typical Castro bar, but I didn't see any sea of homongenous faces at The Bar that spoke to me of a need for diversification. The hip-hop orientation could work with a more acute track selection, since later in our visit there were some deeper tracks that came on and gave the space a warm vibe, but from the small number of people we saw there on a Friday night at prime drinking time, the Jet concept as it stands now doesn't seem to be catching on. The boyfriend and I agreed that we would come back and check it out again on another night, but it needs something more compelling and interesting to keep me there past the first drink.

The Transfer Sold Again?

Walking past The Transfer bar on Church Street this weekend I noticed a transfer of ownership sign in the window, and all the full-window event posters were gone. It seems that just about a year and a half after purchasing the bar where dreams went to die and turning it into a small sensation, Greg Bronstein has decided to shuck it off on someone else. According to this somewhat dated article in the Bay Area Reporter Bronstein has been steadily divesting himself of his restaurants with an eye toward developing his bar properties, but it's unclear how getting rid of The Transfer, which has been doing booming business with the likes of Bus Station John's Double Dutch Disco, fits in with the grand scheme. Though mere blocks from my pad, I never got into The Transfer, having only been there once for a friend's birthday party. The DJ that night was playing uninspired selections from the feel-good funk catalog, and using the "Jet" setting (known to the rest of us as a flanger)on her CDJ-100s as a kind of substitute cross-fader. The other nights advertised there never managed to capture my attention, and I'm not into BSJs retro vibe, so when I wanted a beer I would just go to the Pilsner. I'll be curious to see what comes back into that space. Perhaps the ghosts of tweakers past continue to haunt that space to such a degree that nothing can grow there ever again.

Update: Getting off the J after work I saw that the Transfer is still serving them up, and a new Double Dutch Disco poster is in the window. I'll be keeping an eye open to see what I can find out about the ownership change.

Further Update: a good source tells me that Bronstein sold the bar behind the back of manager Shawn, then fired him. This has left many of the promoters in a moral quandry as they feel that they should pull out from the night, but still want to support the rest of the staff. Further drama unfolding in the gay bar scene . . . .