Once dubbed “the Carnegie Hall of public sex in America,” the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre has been closed since the pandemic. But a new ownership group hopes to revive it, possibly with alcohol service and karaoke.

All of San Francisco’s strip clubs were forced to close during the pandemic, though most have reopened. One that did not reopen was perhaps the most historically significant of the bunch, as the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre announced its permanent closure in November 2020. Once the dominant adult entertainment venue in town, and famously described by Hunter S. Thompson as the "the Carnegie Hall of public sex in America," the place had been struggling financially since well before COVID.  

Yet there may be new strip club life in store for the storied venue. The SF Business Times reports that a new ownership group is attempting to reopen the club, which would possibly do business under the name Club 895, which is the applicant name on its liquor license paperwork (and a reference to the venue’s 895 O’Farrell Street address).

That follows up on July 2024 reporting from the Chronicle that a sale of the building was pending, and the potential new owners were putting in applications to operate as an adult entertainment venue.

The new building owner is Evan Kletter, whom the Business Times did not reach, though they did get comment from the project’s permit consultant David Villa-Lobos.

"It's going to be a whole fresh approach," Villa-Lobos said. "There's a whole list (Kletter) prepared, a narrative for the city of what he wants to do there. So it's going to be a lot more than the old Mitchell Brothers."

This “a lot more” would include alcohol, should the liquor license applications be approved. The Business Times adds that the permit applications also reference “food options and other amenities including karaoke.”

Most surprisingly, the new owner Kletter expects to do $4 million worth of renovations to the space. That sounds quite generous, though consider that he bought the building for $4.3 million in December 2024, and the building’s previous 2019 sale price was $9 million. So the purchase was a comparative bargain.

It does not sound like the venue will be called “Mitchell Brothers” should it reopen. That might seem like turning its back on the legacy of the theater, originally an adult movie house run by Jim and Artie Mitchell. That movie house won a number of legal battles that came to establish the so-called “red light district” rules around the country. And of course, the Mitchell Brothers then made the groundbreaking 1972 film Behind the Green Door, which became the second-highest-grossing X-rated film of all time, making $50 million (on a $60,000 budget).

Or maybe it is better to forget that legacy. Jim Mitchell shot and killed Artie Mitchell at his Corte Madera home in 1991, as Artie was reportedly in an alcohol and cocaine spiral. And Jim’s son James Mitchell was convicted of the 2009 murder of his girlfriend, while Artie’s daughter Jasmine Mitchell pleaded guilty to her role in running an identity theft ring in 2014.

Related: RIP O'Farrell Theatre, the Mitchell Brothers' Infamous Tenderloin Strip Club [SFist]

Image: Kevin Y via Yelp