The famed Savoy Tivoli club in North Beach has been many things to many people over the years—as its tagline goes, “a favorite of hippies and Beats, punks and preps, ladies and gents.” 

These chameleon-like capabilities are perhaps the key to ensuring the club’s enduring survival through so many eras. Opened shortly after the 1906 earthquake as a place to play bocce and eat homestyle Italian food, it morphed into a Beat hangout and, later, a punk mecca.