The Old Ship Saloon was established in 1851 and located itself near downtown on Pacific and Battery.( Its located right next to an empty lot so parking is super easy.) The saloon came to be after a large storm capsized a ship named the Arkansas. An entrepreneur, Joe Anthony, brought the ship into Yerba Buena cove (that was eventually filled in) and quickly went to work rehabilitating the ship by cutting a hole in the hull and posting a sign out front reading "Gud, Bad, and indifferent spirits sold here! at 25 cents each." over the next few decades the ship would be reconstructed to allow housing above the saloon and operated as a "Shanghai den" where sailors would walk into the bar, get intoxicated and find themselves on far away from home on a voyage across the open see.
Today the saloon has a comfortable environment, modestly priced food and spirits. What I thought was really cool about this place was the old mortar used for the walls and the incredible photos from the early 1900's and artist renderings of the bar before.
Do you know whether there would have been a "free lunch table" there in the 1860s through 1880s?
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