Sad, sad news for fans of the city's only full-service dive bar that served actually above-average pizza, Jay 'n Bee Club: It's closed, probably for good.
As Mission Local reports, owners Steve Benazzo and Mike Perry have decided to call it quits after 21 years. Their bar and grill at the corner of 20th and York made its way onto some best pizza lists in recent years (including on SFist in 2016) for some excellent, crunchy crust and interesting pies like the spicy Atomica (mushrooms, capers, chilies, red onion, and spicy sauce) and the Lucca Bread featuring sausage from the soon-to-shutter Lucca Ravioli Co.
The pizza is more of a recent phenomenon, though, making use of an oven that was already installed in the space's tiny kitchen. For several years in the last decade, Jay 'n Bee's kitchen was used by a Mexican pop-up operation called Marta's Kitchen, which garnered some accolades on KQED's Check, Please! in 2008.
Over the 70+ years of this bar's existence, it's been a lot of things, as Benazzo told KQED, including a cop bar and a firemen's bar.
Most likely, its next owners will keep it as a bar, but lord knows its dingy dive cred is likely to get washed over in favor of something bougier. Sigh.
Let's just hope they bring back the pizza.
Photo: kdub/Yelp