Pioneering topless nightclub named a San Francisco 'Legacy Business'
SAN FRANCISCO -- On any given night in North Beach, you can see flashing neon at the corner of Broadway and Columbus where the landmark Condor Club has been welcoming patrons since the late 1950s.
In the mid-sixties the club gained fame -- and infamy -- when it became the first fully topless nightclub in America.
Its current owner, Joseph Carouba, has spent the past several years keeping the pioneering venue alive.
"Some people don't understand what happens in the clubs -- don't understand how it works," Carouba said. "To be a world-class city, you need world-class entertainment and that's not always the opera or always just the symphony."
Carouba likened owning his club to buying antiques.
"Because (the Condor is) so old, you realize you're just gonna have it for a short period of time. You're really the curator -- you're there to just take care of it. You know you've paid for the privilege to take care of that piece and then to give it to somebody else. And so that's the Condor."
"This is not a museum. where you go in and it talks to you about the Barbary Coast. This is a living remnant of that time," Carouba said.
If the Condor Club is a museum, Carol Doda was its Mona Lisa. She became the first fully topless dancer in the nation in 1964, wearing a mono-kini that fully exposed her breasts. At the time, dancers at nightclubs wore pasties.
North Bay filmmakers Jonathan Parker and Marlo Mckenzie chronicle her story in an upcoming documentary "Topless at the Condor."
"She was the girl on the piano and the clubs were all competing with each other for business. This was the big nightclub scene in San Francisco at the time on Broadway and so they rigged the piano to lower her from the ceiling," Parker explained.
Parker says Doda's bold move was like pouring gasoline on the fire that would erupt into the Summer of Love and the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. It's a major point of pride all these years later for Carouba and his staff.
But the Condor's storied legacy almost ended abruptly just two years ago when the lights on Broadway went dark.
COVID shutdowns devastated the nightclub scene and Carouba struggled to keep the business alive, relying on a PPP loan from the government to try and support his employees.
After two years of navigating pandemic restrictions and a major economic slowdown, the Condor got an unexpected boost when District 3 supervisor Aaron Peskin agreed to nominate the club to San Francisco's Legacy Business registry, a program aimed at helping prop up historic businesses in the city. To qualify, businesses must have remained in operationg for at least 30 years then receive a recommendation from the Historic Preservation Commission.
Carouba and his manager made their case to the city.
"(The club manager) got up there in front of the commission and he said 'you know, you guys ever watch that show Cheers? Yeah -- it's like that except -- striptease! So you know it's like ... a naked 'Cheers,'" Carouba recalled with a laugh.
The designation means that the Condor will get financial help from the city, including marketing tools, a grant to help the club secure a long-term lease, an eventual plaque and the pride of being North Beach's only adult entertainment venue on the list.
"It did feel like a validation. Not just for me but for, for Carol Doda. For the people that got busted here. For the original owners who were just some kids from North Beach who were just trying to make good. It felt like validation for all those guys. Not just us," Carouba said.