Holy Cow Has Closed Down

Alas, San Francisco’s most famous bovine themed nightclub is no more. The giant pink cow, with a nipple ring in its utter, that’s been hanging outside of 1535 Folsom Street since 1987, has finally been retired.

In its place will be a new club called Eve and from what I gather it will be run by the same people. All they’ve really told me is in the text message below:

I’ve texted them again and have yet to learn any more information about the new club unfortunately.

That said, I’m not terribly sad to see Holy Cow go. I’ve lived in the neighborhood for over a decade and up until Covid, people would come from all over the Bay Area to party at Holy Cow, and then fight outside my house. I can’t tell you how many times I had to hear “Hold me back bro!” being yelled outside my window by some jerk off I saw waiting in line to get into Holy Cow earlier that night.

As you can see, the cow is gone, the building is painted, and there’s a sign up that says “Eve”

That said, it seems Holy Cow wasn’t always this way, and the cow itself wasn’t always pink. In fact I remember it being leopard print back in the day, and at one point it was even, gasp…cow print.

I did a little digging and found out a bit of history about the place.

Holy Cow has been a mainstay in SoMa since it first opened its doors in 1987. But before that, it was the original location of the Stud (sadly RIP).

I was lucky enough to stumble on this FB page created by Gary Bossier, one of Holy Cow’s founders, and in it he explains the how the bar got it’s name: