Bottom of the Hill<\/a>, the legendary San Francisco music venue, won\u2019t shut down at the end of the year after all.\u00a0<\/p>\nEarlier this year, owners Kathleen Owen, Ramona Downey and Lynn Schwarz announced that it was time to retire and close the club after 35 years. Then came an outpouring of support. Fans mourned one of the city\u2019s last affordable, independent venues; bands bemoaned the loss of a stage that nurtured generations of up-and-coming acts. A couple of agents even said that if there\u2019s no Bottom of the Hill, they\u2019ll skip San Francisco on their tours altogether.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe realized that we are but stewards of this place, and it got bigger than us,\u201d Schwarz tells KQED. \u201cAnd that we actually kind of don\u2019t have a right to let it close, especially when so many people are reaching out to buy the business and just telling us how much it means to the ecosystem of music.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schwarz says she feels bad about causing panic about the club\u2019s closure. Popular acts like Toro y Moi, Deerhoof and Bratmobile all sold out shows at the 246-capacity room this year to show their support. Some bands even reunited to play there. And fans have shown up in droves to attend concerts and buy merch. \u201cI went from being overworked last year to taking on a year that is four times busier, but it has actually been just absolutely wonderful,\u201d Schwarz says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That leads Schwarz to an important point: She hopes fans will support their favorite cultural institutions before they\u2019re in danger of shutting down. \u201cShow Michele the same love that you showed us this year,\u201d she says. \u201cSupport the independents.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Longtime concertgoer and entrepreneur Michele Bronson will take over the 35-year-old independent music venue. Oct 22, 2026 Updated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-505193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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