In 1926, a building was moved onto Diamond Street from a part of San Francisco that is still listed as unknown. That account comes from the Glen Park Association, which also says a man named Joe Veloni lived upstairs and raised nine children in a three-bedroom apartment above the business he ran downstairs. The business is now Glen Park Station at 2816 Diamond Street, and this year it turns 100.
The centennial lands in an unusual year for the Village. In April, the Board of Supervisors made the blocks around the bar the Glen Park Entertainment Zone. By 2025, Glen Park's evenings had come down to a single open place to order a cocktail. The zone is the first rule that lets those evenings spill past that room's door, and Glen Park Station is one of the five businesses named to make it work.
A century told in a handful of names
The bar's early history mixes record and legend. The Glen Park Association repeats a long-standing rumor that the place ran as a speakeasy behind a front-room coffee shop, with a secret knock at the door between them. 1926 was the height of Prohibition, which helps explain why the story has lasted. The rest of the timeline is firmer:
| Year | What the record shows |
|---|---|
| 1926 | Bar opens under owner Joe Veloni, in a building moved to the site that year |
| 1935 | Known as Glen Tavern |
| 1973 | BART opens its Glen Park station a block away |
| Late 1970s | Name believed to change to Glen Park Station |
| 1990 | Tom Coulter and Rene Lecour buy the bar |
| 1997 | Coulter and Lecour buy the building |
| 2021 | Lecour retires; bartender Shane Ryan and Sean Kelly take over |
The name change is the detail that ties the bar to the neighborhood's own story. As SFGATE reported in 2024, Ryan and Kelly believe the tavern took the name Glen Park Station after BART's Glen Park station opened in 1973. The bar is half a century older than the transit station, yet it took its name from it.
Each owner left a mark that people still talk about. Under Coulter, bartenders wore shirts and ties, according to the Glen Park Association. The same retrospective notes a split in what people call the place: older customers say "The Station," and younger ones text "I'm at GPS." When Lecour retired, Ryan told SFGATE, neighbors worried a buyer would turn the room into "a swanky cocktail bar." He and Kelly set out to keep it "old school, working class" while making it welcoming for anybody. Kelly's own history there goes back to his father and uncle, who drank at the bar from at least the 1970s.
Two months in 2024 showed how much one room carries
At 3 a.m. on July 4, 2024, a burst water main flooded the bar. SFGATE reported that it was the second break within a year near the corner of Chenery and Diamond. The floors had to be replaced, and the L-shaped, 28-stool bar had to be cut open so it could dry out. Repairs ran past $100,000, and the bar was closed for two months.
The Glen Park Merchants Association noticed the gap right away. Its president, Janet Tarlov, who co-owned Canyon Market across the street until 2022, told SFGATE that losing "reliable, evening foot traffic was frankly a concern," and that merchants were relieved "that post 8 p.m., it's not just dead on the street." Tarlov was describing a whole commercial corridor whose late-evening activity depended on one business keeping its lights on. SFGATE described Glen Park Station as the only bar of any kind in the neighborhood.
Why the count stayed at one
A year later, the question turned into a local argument. In October 2025, the San Francisco Standard counted four cafés and several restaurants in Glen Park but only one place to order a cocktail. It reported that just two Village businesses held full liquor licenses: Glen Park Station and Le P'tit Laurent, whose storefront has been dark since it closed. The Glen Park Association answered in its year-end post. It said the bar "has been making the best martinis for 99 years."
The attention followed TimeOut's ranking of Glen Park at 35th among its 39 "coolest neighborhoods in the world." In a San Francisco Chronicle profile that same month, Kelly said he worried the neighborhood could become too well known. The Chronicle called the Station the neighborhood's only dive bar.
La Cigale, the wood-fired French counter restaurant at 679 Chenery Street that opened in 2025, added a destination dinner to the Village. As of June 2026, the Standard reported, it books through OpenTable for two seatings. A path to more liquor licenses did not open either. The city's 2026 round of neighborhood-restricted restaurant liquor licenses, its Type 87 program, lists seven qualifying areas, and Glen Park is not one of them. No new license would add a second drinking room on Diamond Street, so the city changed where drinks can be carried instead.
What the Entertainment Zone allows
Ordinance No. 75-26, sponsored by Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, passed on April 28, 2026. It created the Glen Park Entertainment Zone on these streets:
- Diamond Street between Monterey Boulevard and Chenery Street
- Chenery Street between Brompton Avenue and Carrie Street
- Monterey Boulevard between Diamond Street and Joost Avenue
- Kern Street between Brompton Avenue and Diamond Street
The management plan from the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, dated July 1, 2026, sets the working rules. During a permitted event, people can buy open-container drinks from participating businesses and drink them on the sidewalks, plazas and streets inside the zone. The plan only allows this during events, and only at these times:
- Thursdays and Fridays, 2 p.m. to 11:59 p.m.
- Saturdays, noon to 11:59 p.m.
- Sundays, noon to 8 p.m.
The ordinance itself permits noon to 11:59 p.m. on any day, and the plan sets the narrower hours above. Businesses cannot sell open containers for the zone outside those windows. The plan allows two kinds of events. Sidewalk-only events need no street closure. Street-closure events can bring in vendors, music and other programming. Organizers must notify the city at least 30 days before any event. The Glen Park Merchants Association at 636 Chenery Street is the zone lead and point of contact, and the Glen Park Neighborhood Association serves as community partner.
The plan confirms five participating businesses, all within a short walk of one another:
- La Cigale, 679 Chenery Street
- Glen Park Station, Diamond Street
- Tekka House, 678 Chenery Street
- La Corneta, 2834 Diamond Street
- One Waan, 2922 Diamond Street
Only one of the five is a bar. The other four are restaurants, and La Corneta is the taqueria next door to the Station, where SFGATE's reporter used to pick up a super burrito before taking a stool. The zone does not add a second bar. On event days, it lets the bar and its restaurant neighbors serve one shared stretch of street. The plan's own priorities include recurring programming schedules and layouts that spread foot traffic along the corridor. Those aims match what Tarlov described in 2024, when one room going dark left the street empty after 8 p.m.
The zone's rules are set by city ordinance and the OEWD plan, and the city can revise the plan at any time. This post is general information, not legal advice, so check the current plan and each event's details before you carry a drink outside.
Where the hundredth year goes from here
On October 15, the Glen Park Association posted a flyer titled "Glen Park Station is turning 100, come celebrate". That post and the bar have the details. SFGATE reported back in 2024 that Kelly and Ryan planned to mark the anniversary.
The same neighbors keep the rest of the Village going. This Saturday, November 7, Glen Park Beautiful is recruiting volunteers for the Public Works and District 8 Beautification Day. They will pull the remaining invasive ivy and tidy the Glen Park School side of the Bosworth Pedestrian Bridge, and the Glen Park Association has the signup details. For evenings that don't center on the bar, Bird & Beckett hosts live music, poetry and book readings more than four times a week, according to the association's summer meeting summary.
Where the bar's building stood before 1926 is still unknown. Its address and its place in the Village's evenings are well documented, and as of this year it shares that role with four restaurant neighbors on event days.
Paige Gienger has spent more than two decades selling homes on blocks like these, close enough to the Village that the Station's lights are part of the evening walk home. If you're curious how Diamond and Chenery are changing, or what this year means for your corner of Glen Park, On The Right Paige is glad to talk it through. Let's Connect.
