The Purple Onion is a celebrated cellar club in the North Beach area of San Francisco, California

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

 located at 140 Columbus Avenue (between Jackson and Pacific). With an intimate, 80-person setting, the club was a popular influence in local music and entertainment during the Beat era.

Notable entertainers who either got their starts or played the club in the 1950s and 1960s include Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou is an American author and poet who has been called "America's most visible black female autobiographer" by scholar Joanne M. Braxton. She is best known for her series of six autobiographical volumes, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first and most highly...

, Jim Nabors

Jim Nabors

James Thurston "Jim" Nabors is an American actor and singer. Born and raised in Sylacauga, Alabama, Nabors moved to Southern California because of his asthma. While working at a Santa Monica nightclub, The Horn, he was discovered by Andy Griffith and later joined The Andy Griffith Show, playing...

, Bob Newhart

Bob Newhart

George Robert Newhart , known professionally as Bob Newhart, is an American stand-up comedian and actor. Noted for his deadpan and slightly stammering delivery, Newhart came to prominence in the 1960s when his album of comedic monologues The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was a worldwide...

, Lenny Bruce

Lenny Bruce

Leonard Alfred Schneider , better known by the stage name Lenny Bruce, was a Jewish-American comedian, social critic and satirist...

, Woody Allen

Woody Allen

Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...

, Phyllis Diller

Phyllis Diller

Phyllis Diller is an American actress and comedian. She created a stage persona of a wild-haired, eccentrically dressed housewife who makes jokes about a husband named "Fang" while pretending to smoke from a long cigarette holder...

 (who made her stand-up debut here), the Kingston Trio
, and the Smothers Brothers

Smothers Brothers

The Smothers Brothers are Thomas and Richard , American singers, musicians, comedians and folk heroes. The brothers' trademark act was performing folk songs , which usually led to arguments between the siblings...

 (then a trio)--who recorded their first album, Live at the Purple Onion

Live at the Purple Onion

The Smothers Brothers at the Purple Onion, released May 1, 1961 on Mercury Records, was the first album released by the Smothers Brothers and established their reputation as folk music satirists...

there. Richard Pryor

Richard Pryor

Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor was an American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, writer and MC. Pryor was known for uncompromising examinations of racism and topical contemporary issues, which employed colorful vulgarities, and profanity, as well as racial epithets...

 also performed at The Purple Onion. The last entertainer to appear at the "old" Purple Onion was singer and comedian Scott Hughes.

The Purple Onion originally opened in 1952 under the management of Keith Rockwell. Rockwell’s sister and brother-in-law, Virginia “Ginnie” and Irving “Bud” Steinhoff would frequently work weekends at the club until 1960 when they took over management. Bud Steinhoff managed the Purple Onion until his death in November 1983. Virginia Steinhoff continued to operate the club until 1989.

In the early 1990s, Tom Guido made the club the center of San Francisco's garage rock

Garage rock

Garage rock is a raw form of rock and roll that was first popular in the United States and Canada from about 1963 to 1967. During the 1960s, it was not recognized as a separate music genre and had no specific name...

 scene, featuring such bands as The Trashwomen

The Trashwomen

The Trashwomen was an all-female American garage punk and surf punk trio from the San Francisco Bay Area signed to Estrus Records.-History:Formed in 1991 by Tina Lucchesi and Danielle Pimm, and former Bitch Fight & later, Eight Ball Scratch guitarist, Elka Zolot, the band formed originally to...

, The Phantom Surfers

The Phantom Surfers

-Current :*"Swell" Mel Bergman: guitar*Mike "Mouth" Lucas: bass*Maz "Spazz" Kattuah: guitar*Russell "Junky Johnny" Quan: drums-Previous:*Johnny "Big Hand" Bartlett: guitar*Mel "Frostbite" Bergman: guitar*Michael "Daddy Love" Lucas: bass...

, The 5.6.7.8's

The 5.6.7.8's

The 5.6.7.8's are an all-female Japanese rock trio, whose music is reminiscent of American surf music, rockabilly and garage rock. They frequently cover songs from American rock and roll. Each member is from Tokyo, Japan....

, Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Groovie Ghoulies

The Groovie Ghoulies

The Groovie Ghoulies were an American pop punk band from Sacramento, California whose music took inspiration from horror movies. They released numerous albums, EPs, and singles, and toured internationally...

, The Go-Nuts, Guitar Wolf

Guitar Wolf

Guitar Wolf is a Japanese garage punk power trio founded in Nagasaki, Nagasaki in 1987. The band is known for songs with piercing vocals and an extremely loud style of noise-influenced punk which emphasizes heavy distortion and feedback...

 and many others.

In 2004, the club returned to its comedy roots. Photographer and booker Dan Dion started a weekly comedy night that featured comedians such as Robin Williams

Robin Williams

Robin McLaurin Williams is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance...

, Paul Krassner

Paul Krassner

Paul Krassner is an author, journalist, stand-up comedian, and the founder, editor and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine The Realist, first published in 1958...

, Jim Short and Tom Rhodes

Tom Rhodes

Tom Rhodes is an American comedian, actor, and host. He starred in the NBC sitcom Mr. Rhodes and was the host of The Kevin Masters Show starring Tom Rhodes and Yorin Travel on the Dutch television station Yorin.When the Yorin shows came to an end, Rhodes returned to the United States and...

. David Owen

David Owen

David Anthony Llewellyn Owen, Baron Owen CH PC FRCP is a British politician.Owen served as British Foreign Secretary from 1977 to 1979, the youngest person in over forty years to hold the post; he co-authored the failed Vance-Owen and Owen-Stoltenberg peace plans offered during the Bosnian War...

 presented the Purple Onion debut of Mort Sahl

Mort Sahl

Morton Lyon "Mort" Sahl is a Canadian-born American comedian and actor. He occasionally wrote jokes for speeches delivered by President John F. Kennedy. He was the first comedian to record a live album and the first to perform on college campuses...

 in June 2005 as well as engagements by Greg Proops

Greg Proops

Gregory Everett "Greg" Proops is an American actor, stand-up comedian and television host. He is widely known for his work as an improvisational comedian on the UK and U.S. versions of Whose Line Is It Anyway?...

, Zach Galifianakis

Zach Galifianakis

Zachary Knight "Zach" Galifianakis is an American stand-up comedian and actor known for his numerous film and television appearances including his own Comedy Central Presents special...

, Todd Barry

Todd Barry

-Biography:Barry was born in The Bronx, New York, and grew up in Florida. In 1999, his Comedy Central Presents aired. He wrote, directed and starred in the short film Borrowing Saffron , which co-starred H. Jon Benjamin. He has made a variety of guest appearances on shows like Dr...

, Dan Piraro

Dan Piraro

Daniel Charles Piraro is a painter, illustrator and cartoonist best known for his award-winning syndicated cartoon panel Bizarro. Piraro's cartoons have been reprinted in 15 book collections between 1986 and the present....

 and Judah Friedlander

Judah Friedlander

Judah Friedlander is an American actor and comedian, known for his trademark trucker hats, oversized glasses and unkempt appearance, which he retains in many of his screen roles.-Early life:...

. Currently, Jabari Davis runs a once monthly weekend show called "Jabari and Associates At The Purple Onion." Susan Alexander has a show at The Purple Onion called "5 Funny Females," which is runs every 3-4 months.The club's free show "Comedy & Cocktails" is every Thursday at 7pm.

External links

Purple Onion calendar
Purple Onion website