By Thomas K. Pendergast

Few drinking establishments offer patrons the chance to watch sports while sitting under a pantheon of history’s greatest thinkers, so perhaps that is why San Francisco recently added the Philosophers Club to its Legacy Business Registry.

This registry recognizes that longstanding, community-serving businesses can be valuable cultural assets of the City, and it is also a tool for providing educational and promotional assistance to such businesses for their continued success.

A mural on the bar’s ceiling, painted by the former owner Deborah Lawder Sullivan in 2010, has 29 images of not only the classic philosophers like Socrates, Plato and Confucius, but also more modern intellectuals like Anaïs Nin, Alice Walker and even John Lennon.

Sitting in the heart of the West Portal neighborhood near the Muni Metro station at 824 Ulloa St., in its earliest phone book listing from 1948 it was named Philosopher Tavern and owned by Gino D. Bianucci and Paul Martini.

By 1951, the name had changed to Philosopher’s Inn and in 1952 Enzo Bianucci joined as a co-owner. The next year saw the departure of Martini, when Robert Barrochi replaced him as another co-owner.

In 1960, Angelo M. George and William Hughes bought the business, which they ran together until 1968 when George became the sole proprietor. In 1975 the name was changed from Philosopher’s Inn to Philosopher’s Club.

Ownership changed again in 2000 when it was bought by Thomas Coulter, Rene Lacore and Chris Bolger. And then again in 2004 when it was purchased by two brothers, Thomas and Richard Donahue and co-owners Kevin Sullivan and Deborah Lawder-Sullivan.

Sometime in the early aughts, the apostrophe was officially dropped from the name to make it Philosophers Club.

The current owners, twin brothers Joshua and Justin Fritsch, bought the bar in 2023, although Josh had already been working there for almost 20 years or so at that point.

Hired a month before his 22nd birthday, little did he know the path he was choosing when he walked in the door.

“I couldn’t have imagined the Philosophers Club would become such an integral part of my life and such a huge part of who I am as a person,” Josh said. “Back then, I was serving tables and I really wanted to bartend.

“There was a reason I was in here and there was a reason that they gave me the opportunity to work here. I was hanging out in here pretty often; I had become friendly with the owners. The reason I hung out here so much was because I liked it here so much.”

When Josh was approached about buying the bar, Justin lived in San Diego but he got onboard right away.

“It was always a dream of ours to come together and do our own thing together,” Justin said. “And when the opportunity came up to take over, it was an absolute no brainer.”

They hesitate to label the Philosophers Club a “sports bar” and although they do get a lot of fans in to watch the games on TV, they would rather be considered a neighborhood bar “because there’s so many things that go on here, other than just game day,” Josh said.

For example, holding chili-cook-offs to raise money for the music program at the West Portal Elementary School; a trivia night for $50 per team with proceeds going to Playmates Cooperative Preschool and hosting a holiday market and toy drive to benefit the San Francisco Firefighters Toy Program.

“We consider ourselves a part of the community just as much as everyone else,” Justin said. “The community comes and freely spends their time and money with us. We want to give back in any way that we can. And I think that doing events like this, it is a way to financially support the community. But it’s also a way for us to bring the community together, rather than just saying ‘ah, we’ll just write a check’.”

Sometimes they bring members of the community closer together in surprising ways, like the power outages that became almost routine last year.

“We have a bunch of battery-operated torches that we pull out,” Josh said. “We have battery-powered radio speakers that we can plug our phone into…. We’ll bring out these lanterns. We’ll bring out a little music. It will be extra dark and moody in here and we’ll have some soft music going.

“And people will stay and hang out for hours even though there are no TVs,” he said. “And now when the power goes out, we’ve got this routine down without a hitch. And it’ll take us maybe 90 seconds to get some lights turned back on and music going again. We’ll start popping out drinks or pour a couple of quick shots.

“People kind of enjoy it. They enjoy the darkness. They enjoy the fact that there’s no distractions going on. People who may not have talked to each other end up talking, and there’s a little camaraderie behind sticking through the power outage.”

Over the years businesses have come and gone along West Portal Avenue, but the Fritschs feel that not much has changed.

“The character of the neighborhood and the people of the neighborhood, the vibe of the neighborhood kind of feels very, very similar to how probably it felt years ago,” Justin said. “Some of the businesses have changed. Some of the buildings have changed but the neighborhood character has stayed true, I think, to itself.”

Yet changes are very likely coming to a neighborhood that feels more like the main street of a small town than a cityscape. Just down the street sits the shell of what was once the Empire movie theater and the San Francisco Planning Department is reviewing a proposal to replace it with a 10-story building to accommodate 64 residential units.

The San Francisco Standard reports that there is a petition being circulated against the project.

When asked about this, Josh said that so far no one has approached them about signing a petition.

“I grew up going to see movies there, and it was an anchor business here in West Portal for such a long time,” Josh said. “Now I’m not saying a movie theater would be successful in that location again. I’m merely voicing my disappointment that there isn’t a movie theater there now.”

On the other hand, all those new housing units might bring them new customers.

“This is something that Josh and I have gone back and forth on,” Justin said. “We run a bar. We’re not into making decisions for the City or for the neighborhood.

“It’s almost impossible for us to be like ‘we should do this’ or ‘this is right’ or ‘this is wrong’ because there’s just so many different factors,” he said.

One thing he is sure about, however, is that running a bar gives them a special kind of satisfaction.

“The biggest surprise has been the amount of satisfaction we’ve gotten from running it for ourselves,” Justin said. “I think I was ultimately just so excited to be back spending so much time with my brother; I didn’t really comprehend what that was going to be like but man, I’ll tell you, doing it for yourself, pretty satisfying, pretty rewarding. It’d be impossible to go back at this point; I’ll tell you that much.”

The Philosophers Club is located at 824 Ulloa St. and is open every day from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. For more information, visit @sf.philosophersclub on Instagram.