The renowned 47-year-old tattoo parlor Ed Hardy’s Tattoo City will be closing at the end of 2024, as its legendary founder Don Ed Hardy is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

Don Ed Hardy, better known as celerated tattooist Ed Hardy, took the Sailor Jerry genre of tattoo art, infused it with Japanese influences, and went on to become the godfather of the contemporary tattoo revival movement. His work spawned a namesake dude-bro men’s apparel brand (in which Hardy did not have any creative control) that pulled in $700 million in 2009 alone, before it was destroyed by lawsuits, and the fact that Jon Gosselin was wearing it around during his very public mid-life crisis meltdown.

But while that apparel brand rose and fell, Don Ed Hardy was always focused locally on his North Beach tattoo parlor Ed Hardy's Tattoo City. But now the Chronicle reports that Ed Hardy's Tattoo City will close at the end of 2024, as Hardy is experiencing serious health problems.


“We are sad to announce that Tattoo City will be closing its doors at the end of 2024,” the shop posted to its Instagram account Tuesday. “With our founder Don Ed Hardy now dealing with Alzheimer’s disease and with his wonderful wife and long time partner Francesca Passalaqua taking care of all of their affairs as well as the shop’s we have decided that the time has come for this part of San Francisco tattoo history to come to an end.”

Hardy was born in 1945 in Des Moines, Iowa, but grew up in Newport Beach, and got his bachelor’s degree from the San Francisco Art Institute. (He was offered a full-ride graduate scholarship at Yale, but declined.) He would tattoo under the tutelage of Sailor Jerry Collins, then studied under the Japanese tattoo master Horihide. Hardy’s work was commonly seen on the biceps of American enlisted men and yakuza gangsters.

In 1974, Hardy established Realistic Tattoo Studio in the Mission District, which would become Ed Hardy’s Tattoo City. The shop moved to Columbus Avenue in North Beach, then to its current Lombard Street location in 1999, and has remained at that space, even as Hardy’s work gained global acclaim.

Don Ed Hardy retired from tattooing in 2009, but continued to mentor tattoo artists. His son, Doug, is also an accomplished tattoo artist at the shop.

“As saddened as we are by having to bring this news to you all, we would really like to make the last few months of Tattoo City a celebration,” the store’s Instagram post continues. “The shop will be formally closing at the end of the year, so please, make a final pilgrimage if you can, come and get tattooed, and share your stories of this wonderful, crazy, historic place."

Parenthetically, that wonderful, crazy, historic place Ed Hardy's Tattoo City is at 700 Lombard Street (at Mason Street), and is open from noon to 7 pm daily.

Related: Ed Hardy Exhibit At The De Young Puts New Skin In The Game [SFist]

Image: NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 13: Don "Ed" Hardy attends the "Ed Hardy: Tattoo The World" Reception at I-20 Gallery on September 13, 2011 in New York City. (Photo by Robin Marchant/Getty Images)