Long-held phone-free policy at San Francisco bar proves to be ahead of its time
The secret word you say quietly after pressing a nondescript buzzer in San Francisco's Tenderloin District doesn't just open a door.
It opens a portal into another time, when passwords granted access to hidden rooms, and liquor flowed freely even while the law insisted otherwise.
Back then, alcohol was prohibited. Today? It's your phone.
Inside Bourbon & Branch, a bar built inside one of the city's original Prohibition-era speakeasies, the cocktails are stiff, the lights glow amber, and conversations happen face to face. It looks like 1924. In many ways, it feels like it too.
"We just ask that you speak easy and don't use cell phones while you're with us," the hostess tells customers as she seats them, menus already in hand.
When new owners took over in 2006, they kept everything that made the place what it was, the dark wood, the amber light, the hidden doors and added one more rule: No phones.
"People are really looking for a way to engage with each other and get away from that constant need and desire to be looking at your phone," said General Manager Anastacia Cortez.
Cortez, who admits she was one of the last people to get a smartphone and still regrets it, said the phone-free policy wasn't a gimmick. It was a philosophy.
Turns out, Bourbon & Branch was ahead of its time.
In cities across the country, bars and restaurants are now enforcing the same rule. A 2025 survey from Talker Research found that 63% of Gen Z intentionally disconnect from their devices, making the generation that grew up online the very one now leading the charge to log off.
Addison Sutton, out for the night with friends, said putting the phone away isn't as easy as it sounds. But the 24-year-old said he wasn't worried about the withdrawals.
"I have alcohol to fix that," Sutton said.
The original speakeasy, which still holds all of its original secret exits, was built so patrons could vanish if police came calling. CEO Brian Sheehy, said the no-phone rule has always been about preservation. Not just of the bar's history, but of the experience itself.
Prohibition may be long over. But contraband, it seems, is alive and well.
First-time phone offenders get a polite reminder. Repeat offenders will get shown the exit, and not the secret one.
"When you're trying to put on the ultimate hospitality experience, you have to minimize the number of distractions to your guests and to your colleagues," he said. "It really come down to hospitality."
