Pink Elephant

The Russian River resort town of Monte Rio is the only place I know of where seeing a Pink Elephant doesn’t necessarily mean you’re drunk. Of course, considering that the Pink Elephant is one of the North Bay’s preeminent dive bars, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re sober, either.

Monte Rio is a depressed Northern California town of 900 where the forest is so thick that some streetlights stay on all day long. In the 1930’s it was a small but popular tourist spot, one Monte Rio hotel is listed in Ripley’s Believe It or Not, as each floor was a ground level floor, but the hotel had seven floors. The Pink Elephant was built sometime around 1937, today it’s the town’s only landmark, although do a Google Search for the Bohemian Grove and you’ll find that just up the forest from this bar is the meeting place for a private society (The Bohemian Club) consisting of some of the most powerful men in the world ….but that’s a different story altogether, …back at the bar…

The appeal of “the Pink” extends to a suprisingly large line of Pink Elephant merchandise (thongs and tote bags, no joke) and even a slogan: “All roads lead to the Pink.” This is hilarious, because this bar is literally a semicircular corrugated-metal inverted halfpipe smack in the middle of “Heroin Hill” – the part of Monte Rio on the other side of the river. The locals are missing teeth and the bartenders are rough around the edges, but the drinks are stiff and the camp appeal is magnetic. The bathrooms are two wooden outhouses, inside the bar. During one storm the back storage room broke off and fell into the creek, creating a brief moment of sobriety for patrons inside. The decor; a painting of a scantily clad, large breasted bartender that is behind the stage, and a similarily adorned woman dancing with a bear in front, and one of an elephant chasing a man with a beer through the jungle are from the forties and were made as donations in exchange for a large bar tab which couldn’t be paid. As small as it is, it attracted some of the most famous San Francisco bands including the Grateful Dead. Not on the beaten path, unless you’re driving the river area, but if so, you can’t miss it, especially at night.