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San Francisco’s beloved independent music venue Club Bottom Of The Hill has been around for 35 years, but it’ll be closing at the end of 2026. The longtime owners Ramona Downey, Kathleen Owen, and Lynn Schwarz made the announcement yesterday.
In a statement on Instagram, Schwarz wrote:
Bottom of the Hill is in its final revolution!
We make this announcement with great difficulty. Bottom of the Hill’s final year will be 2026, and our last day will be next New Year’s Eve. This legendary business will have lived to the ripe old age of 35, a long stretch in San Francisco for an independent rock ‘n’ roll venue of our size. It has been a wonderful trip, and we are full of stories and memories. We have hosted tens of thousands of musical artists and have been a community partner as well, holding numerous benefits, school recitals, weddings, birthdays, and memorials. Let’s have one more solid year of memories together and bid a fond farewell to a legendary venue.
We will curate one more year of great shows, enticing bands that make up our history to come back for one final play on our stage. Let’s celebrate, for one more spin, how far we came, how many bands we hosted, how many amazing people we worked with. We want to thank the bands, their agents, managers, and roadies, for always bringing the most exciting shows to our intimate room, with the analog board at the helm. And most especially, we wish to thank our loyal customers who kept us in business for this long and told us, in so many ways, that we were doing things right.
As the owners of Bottom of the Hill, we (Ramona Downey, Kathleen Owen, and Lynn Schwarz), are three women in different phases of our lives (and a sad RIP to Tim Benetti, our beloved fourth, whom we recently lost). Part of what has made our partnership so functional and wonderful are the perspectives of three strong women from different generations and backgrounds. We come together on so many issues but also bring our own unique life experiences to this business. Together we have nurtured Bottom of the Hill over the decades-it’s our child. We include in our family the incredible staff who are the ones who keep our business on the map. Several of our team have been with us for well over a decade and some the whole time, making this decision to shutter extra difficult.
We will miss you all so much after this one last star-studded year. 2026 is our big victory lap! Please come celebrate with us. Not with a whimper, but a bang!
Lynn (with the blessing and input of Kathleen and Ramona)
The owners also did an interview with Coyote Media, explaining that this decision isn’t due to some cruel landlord, because Downey and Owen are the landlords. Downey said the closure was “the hardest decision we’ve ever made,” and it was a result of many factors, only some financial, like insurance costing $34,000 annually. The article mentions the shifts San Francisco’s demographics as a reason, as well as the difficulty of keeping ticket prices low.
Over the years, the 247-capacity room has had Oasis, the Strokes, Joan Jett, Elliott Smith, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Pavement, the Beastie Boys, and many more.