The bar and live music venue Amado’s closed permanently two years ago, but is now somehow open again, with a soft opening schedule of just weekend nights, and food only on Fridays and Saturdays (for now).
It’s been nearly two full years since the Valencia Street nightclub Amado’s closed down permanently, and at the time, owner David Quinby told Mission Local that the closure was “because of the bike lane.” He refers of course to the very controversial center-running bike lane experiment that the SFMTA tried out on Valencia Street, then eventually scrapped after a year and a half, as shops up and down the Valencia corridor said it was destroying their customer foot traffic.
But Amado’s also had a basement flood that did $500,000 worth of damage to the venue’s downstairs space, after a Pride Weekend 2023 mishap where a drag queen accidentally set off the fire sprinklers, and they couldn’t be shut off until the fire department got there. Either way, the two consecutive setbacks seemed to doom the eight-year-old bar and live entertainment venue for good.
But they did not doom Amado’s for good! Amado’s has reopened at the exact same 998 Valencia Street location, with a limited-hours soft opening. And as the sandwich board above says, the “pool table is back, baybeeeee!”
"We were able to work out a deal with the landlord who happens to be the landlord at our sister venue The Riptide on Lower Taraval/Ocean Beach," Quinby tells SFist. "He witnessed the devastation of the center bike lane and the dozens of businesses forced to close because of it after surviving the pandemic. Thankfully, he believes in the future of these two entertainment venues, so he worked with us to reopen Amado’s."
The reopening apparently happened sometime around mid-July. And as we noted earlier, it’s a limited-hours soft reopening that’s currently just Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights from 5 pm - midnight. The club hopes to expand that schedule to Tuesdays through Saturdays.
There’s an online menu, but most of the food items listed on that menu are not yet available during the soft open. "The full menu is back next week," according to Quinby.
But they are currently offering the house-made chips and salsa ($5) or house-made chips and guac ($8) seen above. They’re also serving a quesadilla with salsa ($5), seasoned french fries ($7), and baby grilled cheese sandwiches with fries ($12, choice of swiss or pepper Jack).
We should note that Amado’s is currently only serving food on Fridays and Saturdays, though they plan to extend that food service.
But the cocktail menu is back at full power, as are both the beer and wine lists. And we have to rave about the toasted coconut margarita with a very unique house-made salt ($17).
There is no live entertainment at Amado’s for now. "We’re hoping to bring back entertainment within two weeks," Quinby says.
The nightclub’s Instagram page says it will probably be “another year” until live shows can return to the flood-ravaged basement space.
"The heart and soul of Amado’s is the ground floor and the mezzanine," he adds. "The basement is still not usable but that space has always been an auxiliary space to the main room. We will relaunch 'Amado’s Grotto,' but just surviving as a small business these days is challenging enough."
So it’s a modest soft opening with the limited hours and small food menu. But a big comeback for a bar and entertainment venue that no one saw coming back.
"All my fellow owners of arts, entertainment and cultural institutions are hoping people get out of their homes more often to support the culture of this incredible city," Quinby tells us. "After all… Bars, nightlife, restaurants and galleries are largely the reason most people move to a big city in the first place. These institutions won’t exist without ongoing support.
"The bottom line of why we have dedicated our lives to these two venues through two fires, a flood, the tone deaf SFMTA infrastructure experimentation and a pandemic (during which both venues never closed with cocktails to go and shows in the street and the back of my pick up truck) is that human beings need to stop endlessly scrolling on their devices."
Amado's - 998 Valencia Street, at 21st Street - open Thursday-Saturday 5pm to midnight
Related: Valencia Street Music Club Amado’s Reeling From Basement Flood, Needs Community Support [SFist]
Image: Joe Kukura, SFist
