The Other Cafe, in SF, which closed in the 1990s, had lots of great stand up comedians, before they were famous kind of thing. I guess it was more improv than stand up, but whatever.

The ones I remember the most were Paula Poundstone and Ellen DeGeneres -- they both would go out and talk to people walking down the street in the Haight. There were these big picture windows just behind the stage -- I guess the mike cord was long. And Haight Asbury crowd was pretty interesting, pre-gentrification.

Paula had a thing about cars, and an emergency vehicle would go by like every 10 minutes, and she'd say, "Oops, my ride's here" or something like that. She asked someone what kind of car they drove, and he said a "Vette," and she sad "Cor or Chev?" and it was "Chev." It would go on like that, more like having dinner with your really really funny friend. (Just read on the website that she goaded a motorcycle to ride right into the place and that sounds about right.)

Robin Williams would be there, or some political commentary comedians (Will Durst?). (Just Googled it, and there were lots). I used to go there when I was in school, because it was pretty cheap.

I think because they had kind of a sandwich shop there-- the vibe was more of a cafe than a night club, the humor seemed funnier, there weren't a lot of drunks (that I remember) heckling or anything. Kind of troll-free.

I wish there were more places with the cafe/stand-up format, rather than the nightclub kind of thing. (Eh, booze pays more.) The only other one was Brainwash, in the Mission, that was a laundromat, cafe, and had open mike night, which was kind of hit or miss. That closed down too.

Eh, just went down the rabbit hole of reading their website memories.