Rather than give you an abbreviated history of San Francisco’s Specs’ (it’s easy enough to find on the internet … and I highly encourage you to do so) these are facts as I know them:

• Specs’ is dark, smells of nearly a century of spilled beer
• Specs’ is one of the last Union bars in the country
• The walls are literally littered with the most fascinating memorabilia, including the baculum of a walrus (or is it a whale?)
• I first visited Specs’ 20 years ago at the recommendation of Max Pavesic (the worlds finest archeologist and THE original hipster) who knew of Specs’ in part because Rosalie Sorrels is a long-time friend of Specs – the owner