Rickshaw Stop Has Rocked for 20 Years By Taking Risks on Up-And-Comers

Rickshaw Stop, the beloved live music venue in San Francisco that’s hosted everyone from a nascent Sam Smith and Billie Eilish to your roommate’s garage band, feels a little bit enchanted.

Enter through a mural of a tentacled beast on an otherwise dull block of Fell Street, and you’ll find yourself in a lively spill of odds and ends: A worse-for-wear piano sags under a “No Diving Allowed” sign to stage left. Marble-topped counters, scavenged from the demolition site of a Catholic rectory, serve as the bar. There are dramatic, crushed-velvet curtains on each side of the stage, a bike suspended from the ceiling and, of course, the titular rickshaw in the corner.

But even though it can make you feel like you’ve slipped into some ramshackle fairytale realm, the venue actually exists for a pretty mundane reason: zoning.

“This block is a really wild block,” says Christopher White, the venue’s owner. Rickshaw Stop’s section of the street has housed restaurants, repair shops, hotels and offices over the years. When White and co-founder Waldo Williams approached it in 2003, it was a disused soundstage where companies shot commercials in the 1960s.

“Waldo and I were like ‘Ooh, we could build something here,’” White says. They knew, since the block also housed food establishments, they could apply for a liquor license. “So that’s why we ended up getting the place.”

Twenty years later, Rickshaw Stop hosts concerts most nights of the week with a slate of up-and-coming indie bands and artists, many from right here in the Bay Area. This month, they’ll celebrate their 20th anniversary with a series of shows that kicks off Jan. 5 and runs throughout the month into February. The lineup is full of independent musicians, particularly local ones, who have played there over the years, including San Francisco punks Pardoner and Oakland garage-rock stylists Fake Fruit, as well as those who have since graduated to wider acclaim, like K. Flay and Shannon Shaw.

Despite its current reputation as a rock venue, the dream of Rickshaw Stop started as the dream of a club club — the kind with pulsating beats, sweaty dance floors and going-out dresses. White and Williams liked dance parties and were looking for a space to hold their own, which led them to the former TV studio. After meeting through a mutual friend, White recruited Dan Strachota — then the DJ and founder of French-pop dance party Bardot a Go Go — to play their first event: a party for Halloween 2003. (There’s debate about how Strachota was dressed that night; he says Santa, White maintains he was a traffic cone with their mutual friend as a traffic cop.) Two decades later, Dan Strachota serves as the club’s longtime talent buyer.

But Williams’ wife suggested their idea of a club wasn’t, well, all that cool. “Fran was like ‘Nightclubs are dumb. But bands are cool.’” As White says, it’s always a good idea to listen to Fran. So they put out feelers for live musicians. Their first live act, in 2004, was Willie Wisely, a singer-songwriter from Los Angeles. “It was actually a totally delightful night,” says White. So they started to balance the dance parties with live acts.

The dance parties remain on the calendar to this day — even Bardot a Go Go, still going strong after 25 years, takes place there. “[The dance parties] made our bones and also got us noticed, and I think probably got some money in the coffers to get better equipment,” says Strachota.

In due time, White realized that Fran was right — while the dance parties were popular, the live music was drawing a crowd, too. He summarizes Rickshaw Stop’s philosophy this way: “The right band, in the right room, at the right time.”

That mantra has led Rickshaw Stop to occupy a unique place in the local live music landscape: the 400-person capacity makes it the perfect fit for bands that aren’t total newbies, but are just about to start gathering industry buzz. “We always say we wanna catch people on the way up,” says Strachota.

Strachota, who has worked as a DJ, music director and music journalist in addition to booking, has honed a precise ear for rising talent. That’s resulted in some major “I knew them when”s – including artists with indie clout, like Mac DeMarco and Vampire Weekend, as well as superstars Sam Smith and Billie Eilish, all of whom played Rickshaw Stop early in their careers.

That in-between size combined with an avowed commitment to supporting independent artists has built them an abundance of goodwill amongst both Bay Area musicians and music fans, many of whom are coming back for the anniversary series in January.

A number of the bands playing the series include Rickshaw Stop employees as well — another testament to how deeply woven into the local music community they have become. Barback Michael Cruz has worked at the venue since early 2023. His band, Combo, is supporting Cheekface — who aren’t local, but recently tweeted their gratitude for Strachota inviting them to play Rickshaw Stop in 2019.

“I appreciate that the space is being used for live music and entertainment instead of something soulless or corporate,” Cruz says. “It’s great to work with like-minded musicians and music lovers.”

Cheekface guitarist Greg Katz believes Strachota’s taking a chance on them was a crucial step on their way to wider acclaim (and helped them get an agent). “We love playing independent venues in general, especially ones like Rickshaw who take risks on new bands and are staffed by people who really care like Dan,” he says.

White and Strachota did consider bringing in some of those national artists they caught on the way up, and also new ones they’d never been able to coax to the club.

But ultimately they decided to keep it close to home. The vast majority of the series’ headliners are local, or at one time were: French Cassettes, Pardoner, Fake Fruit, The She’s, Geographer and plenty more.

“I think what’s really been heartening is doing some of these all-local shows and you’re like ‘OK, not everyone has left town,” says Strachota. “There are a lot of people here, and they’re young people, and they’re excited about the scene.’”

Those young people are factoring in more and more to the club’s overall operations. Lately, they’ve been letting the younger folks in their employ — and their own families — take the reins. “One very strong recommendation I’d ever give anybody … is to find people that are smart, and that are much younger than you, that can help you figure out where you’re going,” says White. “Maybe twee bands and rock music from 1999 is not the thing anymore, so find somebody who gets what the hell it is and listen to them.”

To wit, White’s son designed nearly all of the posters for the 20th anniversary series, and his daughter runs the venue’s social media accounts. “To see our friends’ kids now work here and come to shows here, and get involved, is like — I never in my wildest dreams would have thought that that would happen,” says White.

Not bad for a couple of guys who just wanted to party. “You can make more money doing dance parties,” says White. “But it’s the affection for the art of the performance that keeps you going.”

Rickshaw Stop’s 20th anniversary shows kick off Jan. 5 and run through February.  Prices vary; more info and tickets here.