42 San Francisco Bars You Need To Drink In Before You Die 2015
Thrillist.com
"Three things you need to know about Kozy Kar: 1) you can drink in a waterbed, an empty Jacuzzi, or a tricked-out GMC van, 2) the TVs splice together vintage commercials with hardcore porn, and 3) you'll probably need to burn your clothes after going here. Kidding! You'll definitely need to burn them. Still, you gotta do it at least once."
*****
Top 8 Theme Bars in San Francisco 2015
UpOut.com
"Relive the glory days of Generation X at this retro, perverted bar that makes you uncomfortable in all the right ways. Kozy Kar is the bar version of that greasy, perpetually drunk uncle (or is he your cousin twice-removed?) who refuses to be seen without his trusty pair of bell-bottoms."
*****
SF's 13 Best Bars To Find Someone To Hook Up With/Make Out With
SFist.com
"Waterbeds, stripper poles, and wallpaper that consists of pinups of naked women from the 70's screams make-out spot, am I right? If you've been eying that friend of a friend for some time now, go to Kozy Kar with your crew. Secure the prime waterbed truck in the back, and then, after you've had a few PBRs and shots of Fireball, roll over near your crush and make your move. Naked make-out at their place afterwards, optional!"
*****
Five Of Our Favorite Theme Bars In San Francisco 2015
localemagazine.com
"Sam Young, owner of Kozy Kar Bar, isn’t sure his bar should be featured on this list. He describes it as a dark, dingy bar and says it’s not nice by any sort of imagination. Even with all of the bad things he has to say (and the many bad reviews he’s gotten from the review site he had a “war” with), customers keep coming and the bar is especially busy on weekends. The concept came from Young’s memories as a child driving up to his parents house up north in the 70s and 80s. He and his brother would always look out the window and see “cozy” vans. The bar was inspired by what he and his brother figured would be in the vans. The bar is very basic, serving jack and cokes, Olympia beer and boxed wine. It doesn’t serve any food. “It’s the shittiest of shit,” says Young. However, people keep coming, if only for the novelty. There are PlayBoys on the counters and 70s commercials, along with porn, playing on the televisions. All of the so-called “furniture” and accessories were gathered from junkyards and guests have the options of sitting at seats made from hot tubs and car parts among other things. The clientele is a random mix of freaks, geeks, and, as Young says, “guys in tuxedos.” The anti-bar does no advertising (aside from the one billboard that showcases the bar’s bad reviews), never holds any special events, and patrons liken to going to Kozy Kar Bar to visiting in their friend’s basement. Young has a lot of negative things to say about the bar he owns, but, he says, “It’s exactly the type of bar I’d want to go to. There is pinball, punk music and shitty beer.” If you’re looking for a memorable experience or are nostalgic for the seventies, this is the place to go.
Native Knowledge: Kozy Kar Bar in San Francisco is one of two Kozy Kar locations. The other one is located in Santa Rosa and is a little less “seedy” than its San Francisco counterpart."
*****
Top Nine Bars of San Francisco 2011
San Francisco Travel
"Bars along Polk Street are plentiful, so how does a bar stand out among the pack? By having stiff drinks, looped 70's cartoons and movies, questionable photos plastered all along the bar and 70's vans with chairs and waterbeds, Kozy Kar does just that. It's a unique bar that you can only find in San Francisco."
*****
7x7 Magazine Weird Art in Bars 2011
Kozy Kar (website slightly NSFW) is an unabashedly, endearingly trashy bar on Polk Street that mixes 70s car culture with copious pages torn from vintage Playboy magazines that seem to cover every surface of its interior�they're even shellacked to the dance floor. Let its Lite Brite sign lure you in to sip a PBR or one of their extra-strong drinks while sitting on a waterbed covered in shag carpet (oh, and the walls are covered in shag carpeting too). If you're rolling deep, get your crew inside one of the booths that's really a hollowed-out air-brushed van equipped with old CB radios. Needless to say, there's a lot to look at."
*****
SF Weekly Best of San Francisco 2010
Best Place to Get Drunk on a Waterbed
"Theme bars aren't the most fail-safe entrepreneurial ventures, but if you're going to give one a try, covering your watering hole with titty shots is probably a smart bet. It's a wonder, then, that no reputable S.F. taverns had taken this approach until 2009, when Kozy Kar opened on Polk Street. If Scooby and Shaggy joined forces with Hugh Hefner to paint the town red, this is probably where they'd spend most of the night. The bar is decorated like the interior of a hotboxed 1970s pussy wagon, with minibus-shaped booths, fully accessible waterbeds, and vintage porn pics plastered over the dance floor. Throw in the Missile Control arcade game in the corner, and you can see why Kozy Kar is a certain sensibility's approximation of heaven"
*****
Everything That Was Important in 2009
Urban Daddy's Top Nine Bars of 2009
"Some eras are worth reliving, especially if centerfolds and waterbeds are involved. Kudos to Kozy Kar for unabashedly embracing the '70s and early '80s by covering its floors and bars with vintage centerfolds, adding mirrored ceilings and, of course, installing a custom 1983 GMC in the heart of it all for inspiration."
*****
CitySearch's Top Ten New Bars of 2009
"There's a reason there aren't too many theme bars in San Francisco, a city which takes great pride in its ratio of seedy dives to square miles. Kozy Kar, however, may have found the perfect combination--a pervy, '70s-inspired dive decked out to make you feel like you're drinking inside a bona fide disco-swinger love van. With everything from shag-carpeted walls and waterbed-booths to working CB radios and a real, live 83 GMC van, the commitment to reviving the best parts of Dazed and Confused is astounding. The theme extends to the booze on offer, as well, with a full lineup of canned PBR, Schlitz, Olympia and Hamm's, and the kind of whiskeys that match a huge 'stache, an obsession with Led Zeppelin and, yes, a souped-up '70s van with a unicorn mural and a teardrop window."
*****
The Year In Eater 2009
The Year's Nine Biggest Restaurant Stories
"Far and away the most memorable Yelp feud involved Kozy Kar, which put a funny photo of a complaining Yelper on its website. That, and the comments thread that ensued, soon became the stuff of legend."
*****
PICTURES OF KOZY KAR


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