Everything Is Going To Hell, So Why Not Bring Back The Fern Bar?
Yes, Gen Z, accept the Harvey Wallbanger as your destiny. Plus, a few twists on classic fern bar recipes.
Will the fern bar ever have its revival? Will we ever see trendy bars created to look like the Regal Beagle, Jack Tripper's swinging hangout in the 1970s sitcom Three's Company? I mean, why not? We've already lived through the speakeasy revival, the tiki bar revival, the cosmo revival, the martini revival, the espresso martini revival, the Shirley Temple revival, the cigarette smoking revival, et al. Doesn’t a brightly-lit bar with lots of plants, fake Tiffany lamps, cozy furniture, yacht rock, and a menu with lemon drops, wine spritzers, frozen daiquiris, piña coladas, and Harvey Wallbangers seem to make sense right now, at this moment when nothing makes sense? To put you in the mood, the fern bar soundtrack might go like this:
Yeah, I know: Every few years, someone floats the idea of a fern bar comeback. Most recently, it was Food +Wine, which a few months ago suggested that the time was right to bring back fern bars: “We live in an age where quality white Zinfandel and well-made disco drinks can be served alongside Michelin star-worthy food. Just add some yacht rock, moody lighting, and potted plants, and you have a recipe for love at first sight.”
But this was only the most recent plea for a return of the fern bar. In 2020, it was VinePair who asked, “In a Post-Covid Era Fueled by Nostalgia, Will We See the Return of Fern Bars?” This piece was mainly about a series of pop-ups sponsored by lowbrow brand DeKuyper, which was trying to promote its liqueurs through items “like a spiked root beer float, an Amaretto Sour, and a Blue Hawaiian, made with déclassé stuff like Watermelon Pucker, sure, but also featuring modern improvements like fresh juices and high-quality modifiers.”
A decade ago (when a nouveau fern bar called Oleanders opened in Williamsburg) the New Yorker explained, “How T.G.I. Friday’s Helped Invent the Singles Bar.” Yes, the original Upper East Side outpost was perhaps the first fern bars when it opened in 1965. So, to be clear, you can thank the fern bar’s popularity for our ubiquitous casual dining chains, since TGI Friday’s begat copycats like Houlihan’s, Applebee’s, et al. According to the New Yorker:
Fern bars were the original preppy hangout, defined by their sugary drinks and faux-domestic interiors, including stained-glass lamps and potted plants. It is widely agreed that they marked an all-time low in bar décor, and in beverage quality; the New York restaurant critic Adam Platt describes them as “Laura Ashley rendered in culinary terms.” Nonetheless, these much maligned taverns hold a notable place in the annals of American cocktail history: they were the first drinking establishments in the country to cater specifically to single women.
The fern bar had its heyday in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Some trace its origins to Henry Africa’s in San Francisco, which opened in 1970. “Henry Africa” was actually a guy named Norman Hobday, who favored safari-style garb and who decided that a bar should be more like your grandmother's living room: more brightly lighted than the dark, clubby bars that existed at that time, and filled with overstuffed chairs, fake Tiffany lamps and, yes, hanging plants. Another San Francisco spot, Perry’s, is also reputed to be the “first” fern bar. Its tile floors and checkered tablecloths were made famous as a singles “meet market” in Armistead Maupin’s novel Tales of the City.
Culturally, the emergence of the fern bar dovetails with the sexual revolution. Single women began frequenting bars by themselves, something almost unthinkable even a decade earlier. Since women liked to go to fern bars that meant, of course, men wanted to go to these bars, too. As the San Francisco Chronicle reported in a cringey 2004 piece on Perry’s: “There was a time, kiddies, when you could go home with a paralegal or a stockbroker for the night and no one had to exchange medical histories (though they may have had to come clean about being a Capricorn).”
The more recent Food + Wine article explained how this dynamic played itself out in the drinks that were served:
Fern bars were a welcoming space for single women, which ushered in the ‘ladies’ night’ concept. Prior to this, many young, single women did not gather in bars to socialize. The drink choices were catered to what proprietors thought women would enjoy: white wine spritzers and a slate of cocktails that leaned on sweet, fruit-driven flavors. This contrasted with the spirit-driven, boozy serves that most bar goers, mostly men, experienced up to this time.
Thus, the endless, embarrassing conversation over which drinks are “girly” or “manly” that is still part of the discourse today (such as this piece in Bon Appétit last month).
To give a sense of how long some of us have been talking about a fern bar revival, I wrote one of these pieces for the Washington Post 15 years ago. In 2010, there was actually a panel at the Tales of the Cocktail spirits industry soirée in New Orleans entitled “The Smooth and Creamy History of the Fern Bar.” That panel’s moderator was, Martin Cate, preeminent tiki expert, author of the tiki bible Smuggler’s Cove, and owner of the famed bar of the same name in San Francisco.
At that time Cate told me bluntly: “The fern bar’s day is not coming back. People keep asking me, ‘Oh God, now you're going to start a fern bar revival, aren’t you?’ No.” Cate’s interest was more academic: the fern bar as a missing link in the history of the America tavern. “There's this whole dark decade that no one wants to talk about,” he said. “Yet fern bars are the template of so many things in bars we take for granted today.”
Beyond cultural history, fern bar drinks are decidedly less than classic. Besides white zin, lemon drops, and piña coladas, think Bahama Mamas, Mudslides and good old Harvey Wallbangers as standards. To serious cocktail nerds this likely sounds like the ninth ring of hell. But as Cate told me back then: “There was more of a sense of humor about drinks back then.” People didn’t overthink things so much. It was more about fun and good times. Again, cue Three’s Company and the Regal Beagle. such as in this clip:
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Consider the infamous Harvey Wallbanger. This is really just a screwdriver (that lowbrow mix of vodka and orange juice) topped with Galliano. Legend has it the drink was invented for a surfer dude at Duke’s Blackwatch, a bar in Hollywood. Perhaps the bartender wanted to class up the screwdriver with something more, ahem, European.
Whatever the reason, the fern bar era was a boon for Galliano, the sweet Italian anise-citrus-vanilla liqueur. Hardly anyone drinks it anymore, but Galliano’s popularity well into the 1980s might explain why that lonely, tall, dusty bottle of yellow stuff still sits on the back bar of so many old-school spots. Its untouched presence is yet another fern bar relic.
I admit that I enjoy one Galliano-based fern bar drink: the Freddy Fudpucker. Freddy is Harvey Wallbanger's Mexican cousin, replacing the vodka with tequila (recipe below).
“We look at those drinks now as sophisticated cocktail people and say, ‘How disgusting,’” Cate told me. “But people loved those drinks. We should look back at those drinks and ask why those flavors were so popular.”
Were so popular? I pointedly asked.
“True,” Cate admitted. “I mean, how many Bahama Mamas and Mudslides are being sold at TGI Friday’s at this very moment?”
We hear so much industry double talk about how the younger generation wants something different. We’re told they want drinks and bars that are less pretentious, less complicated, less traditional, less gatekept. We’re told that young people want things that are more fun, more casual, with more flavormaxxing, sweeter and fruitier, and maybe even a little more silly and flamboyant.
Ok, Gen Z, here is your moment. Please, once and for all, bring back the fern bar.
Favorite Fern Bar Cocktails
A piña colada riff, and cocktails involving Galliano and Midori that walk the line of trashy and good taste. Recipes are for paid subscribers. Upgrade today at a discount!
