Living in Pacifica in the 1980s, Kris Justesen would regularly come to San Francisco for work, school, or to coach and play softball. And when she did, she would often end up at Maud's Study, a now shuttered lesbian bar that opened in Cole Valley five decades ago.
"This was my home away from home," recalled Justesen, 59, who now lives in Salt Lake City, where she practices acupuncture. "If I wasn't at school or work or playing softball in San Francisco, I was hanging out at Maud's with my buds ... It was family."
She decamped from the Bay Area in 1989 and has returned a few times over the years. Last weekend Justesen was back in town, reminiscing about the good old days at Maud's, which closed in 1989. The bar, at 937 Cole Street, is now known as Finnegan's Wake, and for the past seven years, it has hosted a reunion for Maud's patrons the Saturday of Pride weekend.
Maud's, which opened May 21, 1966, had been "the longest, continuously operating lesbian bar in the world," said Susan Fahey, 64, who started as a bartender in 1976 and worked her way up to manager.
Justesen said the patrons saw Fahey as the "bar boss," adding, "I think everyone had a crush on her."
"I was always your older woman," joked Fahey, who with Mandy Carter, another former Maud's bartender who was first hired to work the door, has helped organize the reunion events.
"She was. Still is," replied Justesen.
For three years Carter would sit on a stoop across the street from Maud's watching its patrons come and go, waiting for the day when she turned 21 and could walk through its doors herself. This past Saturday she pointed to the second bar stool from the left near the front entrance where she first sat down to order a drink.
"The bartender said, 'Can I see your ID?' They then gave me a free drink and said, 'Happy Birthday!' That literally was a defining moment where I felt valued," said Carter. "For literally a year I didn't move from that spot."
This year's event, which the organizers have said will be their last, took on special importance due to the shooting rampage earlier this month at Orlando's gay nightclub Pulse, which left 49 people dead, many young Puerto Ricans. Attendees to the Maud's anniversary were each given a red plastic bracelet that said "SF Pride �" Maud's 50th Stands With Orlando."
A number of the women said the tragedy in Florida prompted them to attend this year's Maud's reunion.
"It inspired me to get my act together, get a plane ticket, and come see my friends," said Justesen. "I needed something to nudge me over to come and that was it."
Cubby Cherlin, 67, who now lives in Sonoma, said she too wanted to attend following the Orlando tragedy. She used to bartend at another now closed San Francisco lesbian bar called Amelia's that was owned by Maud's owner, the late Rikki Streicher.
"I came because of Orlando. I want to show solidarity for our community, even more so because a gay bar was attacked," said Cherlin.
Another co-coordinator of the event, Jorja Ghera, a former barback at Maud's who first walked into the bar when she turned 21 in 1977, said the women were "more determined" after Orlando to remember Maud's one last time.
"It was a special bar, a special place. It will never be repeated," said Ghera, who in 1997 moved to Georgia north of Atlanta to care for her mother. "This will always be a priceless part of my life."
Former patron Susan Hester, 65, who now lives in Sonoma County, first came to Maud's in 1973 for a birthday party she had invited herself to. At that time, going to a lesbian bar "was an act of courage," she recalled. "It was a different dichotomy. Now we are full circle were going to gay bars has become an act of courage again."
Maud's operated during a very different time, opening when many LGBT people were not out of the closet and women were forbidden to work as bartenders. According to Carter, most of the early staff was gay men.
When the rules changed and she started working the bar, Fahey would use a switch to flick on a red light in Maud's darkened dance area to signal for the women to decouple should the police or inspectors with the state alcohol and beverage control show up.
"The ABC was very strict. Maud's was closed one time because an undercover agent was in the bar and saw a woman touching another woman's neck," said Fahey. "We were extremely conscious of that happening."
Justesen credited the bartenders for always ensuring Maud's was a "safe, welcoming place."
The bar never closed for holidays, remaining open on Thanksgiving and Christmas so those without family had a place to go.
"That was another thing important to Rikki," said Fahey. "We would be here cooking all night and have an enormous spread."
Streicher, who died in 1994 at the age of 68, wanted anyone who walked into Maud's to feel welcomed there, said Fahey.
"You could be the strangest person or the most popular girl, everyone was important to Rikki," said Fahey. "Rikki always said the greatest asset of Maud's was its customers."