Specs’ Twelve Adler Museum Cafe

I usually end up here in combo with visiting Vesuvio across the street. Spec’s tends to attract a more eclectic crowd that’s great for a long, fun conversation. It’s darker, divier, and even more crazily decorated.
Check it out, grab a pint, and do some stranger chatting.

This is my home in San Francisco. I’ve spent a lot of my trips trying to find a bar with some soul & history. This is the real deal. Staff is great bar is great. This is a one of a kind place you must visit while you are here. There are a lot of new bars opening up that are loosing what was great about the city and this is coming from a guy like me in my early 20’s. Love this place you will too.

Great atmosphere and great service. Good old fashioned bar you can’t find anywhere else in San Francisco.

Dark, divey, gritty, musty, & cluttered.
That’s just all a part of its particular brand of charm.
If you want hipster, this isn’t your joint.
If you want old school, then it is.
Loaded w history, culture, & artists, Specs’ is an institution, both the bar & the man!
I met Specs (Simmons) back in the 90’s, & 2 things were constant…
his looming presence, & his love for the ladies.
Today, he doesn’t get around as much as he used to, but his love for the ladies is still going strong.
Conveniently located right next to Tosca, & right across the street from City Lights Books, a stop here is a must for any local, artist, neighborhood newbie, or tourist.
In other words,
anyone.
4 stars.

Wonderful divey bar. Lots of wood and artifacts. Not touristy. Not as inexpensive as it should be but it is so centrally located and you pay for the atmosphere.

Specs’ is a local legend. Stocked with every conceivable oddity, this museum of eternal ephemera is brimming with lovable grumps and local legends. The cheese plate usually sucks — so consider yourself warned. Unless you love stale saltines and wax-​on gouda. Hey, I’m not here to judge.
Used to live just up the hill from this place and worked right across the street at City Lights, so this was on my evening itinerary quite often.
Specs’ is a quirky character of a bar. Enjoy the weird appeal and do try to learn something from the odd exhibit of artifacts. There’s actually a lot of interesting SF history in there.

40/​50-​somethings love this place!
Specs has an older crowd and might not appreciate you and your rowdy group of young men coming in for a birthday — someone who looks like George Costanza asked the birthday boy to tone it tone. His crime: laughing.
Aside from this element, drinking inside Specs feels like drinking inside a museum. Which is completely rad. You can really feel the history inside this bar.
This is a very San Francisco experience, grumpy beatniks included. I know, guys — those young whipper snappers, I tell ya…

Cheap drinks, colorful patrons, salty bartenders, and plenty of cheese & crackers for the table. These are just some of the reasons why Specs’ remains of of my favorite (cash-​only) dive bars in North Beach.
I used to frequent this bar a lot back when I lived in the hood 15-​years ago. Located across the street from City Lights Bookstore, this watering hole really transports you the SF of yesteryear (if that’s a word). I’m pleased to report that 15-​years later, Specs is still the same. Nothing (and I mean NOTHING) has changed about this place. The gruff bartenders still give you dirty looks if you take too long to order or request a frou-​foru drink. This place is strictly beer and hard booze, folks. If you want a fancy-​schmancy Cosmo or Apple-​tini, go to Tosca’s next door.
My group of 7 and I squatted at a round table last Saturday night. We nursed a bunch of White Russians and Fernet, while nibbling on blocks of cheese. There’s plenty of people-​watching to be done at Specs. And by that, I mean there are a number or irregular regulars (everyone from Beatniks to hipsters to borderline hobos). That being said, everyone seems to play nice in the same sandbox.
If you’re looking for an authentic North Beach experience, do yourself a favor and mosey down this little alley way for a pop. You’ll be glad you did.

White Russians, crazy crap all over the walls, plastic bins of Ritz crackers and partial blocks of cheese, cash only.
That about sums Specs’ up.
That and it’s just perfect.
On a Saturday night my party of 7 was able to snag a large round table, several plastic bins of Ritz and cheese, and round of white Russians in mere minutes of walking in. It’s dark interior is offset with what is clearly some very colorful history at this local dive. A total win and the first of many visits for this gal.

I’ve been coming here for nearly two decades. Specs has always been a safe haven for locals like me. Specs has been the spot for several great, memorable night’s out with friends and family over the years.
…but tonight I was asked by the bartendress to «please quiet down» as other patrons were complaining that my table was too loud. She actually shouted at me from behind the bar. Several hours later, I am still stunned.
I apologized to said patrons on the way out. They were nice enough, but WTF?

Cute place, sure. But nothing excuses lousy service when there is literally 8 people in your bar at 5pm. The Guinness tasted a bit off and a little light too… maybe the taps need some cleaning?

Love the atmosphere and I’ve had really friendly service from the bar tender. Will definitely come back here for an after hour drawing session!

Just don’t come here when the feminist bartender is here and you have to hold your tongue (hard to drink and have fun that way). Also, Anchor Steam is $ 6.
Otherwise, great place.

(from Nov 8 visit)
Popped in here for a quick break with a friend before heading to dinner. Didn’t have a cocktail — just club soda with lime — so I can’t say much about the vibe. It was $ 4 for 2 nonalcoholic drinks, which seems a little high, but hey, it’s SF, what are you gonna do?
Cash only here.

In utero my beating heart was so so driving, urging, really. That maddening creciendo has always pounded on, even after the birth cavity; through bicycle-​skinned knees, first kisses and last hugs; through, I think, a confused and utterly mesmerizing emotional trip. Clud ump clud ump clud urumpm, with slight irregularity as if to suggest something more is coming. Yes, I know, as we all do, that coming and coming is inevitably death. But, there are moments in life when the beckoning hushes and we truly rest. Mine, it just so happens, has seemed dullest while drinking whiskey, eating cheese, and reading random postcards in the hull of the mighty ship, Specs. The anti-​utero, and plain-​ol good joint.
I haven’t been back in 6 years, but I have written postcards to myself, sitting there six years ago. And to others, sitting there now. No stamps or pen to paper, but long mental reaches through time and space to peaceful sippers, sipping silently, quipping over the hugeness of it all. Or just getting sh$-faced on toddies.

4:30PM. I guess it’s almost 5 o clock if you round up.
My friends and I try to find a bar and stumble upon here.
It’s completely dark.
I find the bathroom and trip on the way out. I wasn’t drunk yet, and the bathroom is extremely clean (note: bar just opened up).
The bartender looks like Albert Einstein.
My friends and I spent a good hour just looking at all the crap that was everywhere.
Museum, indeed.
Got a shot of Jameson (it’s St. Patty’s Day after all) and an Anchor Steam beer each.
14 dollars per person. Cash Only
Not sure if that’s cheap.
As a bar: 3 stars. As a random hole in the wall museum that serves alcohol: 5
Regretted not sitting at the bar, Einstein looked like an interesting person

Specs’ is San Francisco.
Since 1968 — Specs’ (named after the owner Specs Simmons) has seen a vast array of poetic and bohemian characters pass through their doors.
Everywhere you look around Specs’ there are stirring pieces of history or creativity which sing of San Francisco’s diverse and rich history. And it’s real too. Specs’ has always been just a quirky and magical haven in the North Beach. It never had to try or court the San Francisco scene. The scene came to it.
The warmness of Spec’s vintage lights highlight the art that is showcased and which unfolds here. This past weekend — we sat in the back — and I watched as two remarkable artists became engrossed in the energy of the place and just drew. Right behind them was an old piano — which I heard comes alive on certain nights accompanied with stirring live music — which further awakens this unique space.
Old Folk music crooned throughout the place as I sipped on my hot tea (yes, tea) here. I kept on warming my hands on the hot glass full of soothing lemon — as I glanced around the room full of conversing patrons and beamed.
There was no top 40 stuff being belted through the space.
No one was wasted or stumbling to the bar.
The bartender was lovely and refilled my hot tea water throughout my time here.
Not only does Specs feel beautifully right — but it’s just always been right.
Trust.

Dive Bar, Speakeasy, Social Club, Funky Hangout… whatever…
Specs’ is a great spot tucked away next to overpriced Tosca and across from City Lights.
Warm, friendly, humble, cozy, divey… all words that come to mind when thinking about Specs.
Check it out as a great start to your tour of North Beach… or a great spot to end it.

This god-​forsaken dive bar not only reeks of rotten fish and homeless elderly folks, but it would be generous to say that its patrons are even remotely that clean themselves. Let alone the bartenders and staff. It would be safe to assume that none of them have ever experienced one moment of happiness in their entire lives and god help you if you let them see you smile. If you so much as toast with your friends, laugh out loud at a good joke, or even make an audible noise while sipping your bud light (surprisingly there is more than PBR here) then satin-​esk bartender will screech at you like a fucking demonic vulture to cease your drunken revelry.
If you’re into misery and uptight «hipsters” — this is the place for you.

Love this local bar next to Tosca café. This was a welcoming change after escaping from the noisy Tosca café Friday night. When I walked in, I was overtaken by the quaintness of this cozy bar. this place has so many eclectic items collected from all corners of the world, neatly spread through the walls, in the cabinets, from the ceiling, without cluttering the place.
Even though this place didn’t have my usual requirements of good wine/​cocktail, I still was happily sitting on the stool, sipping some water, and feeling happy to have been taken to such a cute and low key joint, unbeknownst to the hipsters next door.