"[3] In 1967, the Haight-Ashbury became the center of the hippie movement's Summer of Love, bringing in new cultural mores with a new generation of lesbian and bisexual women, some of whom became regulars at Maud's.
[4] Other notable patrons of that era were Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, poet Judy Grahn, and academic and activist Sally Gearhart.
"[6] In her memoir Making Butch, Sue-Ellen Case describes her first visit to Maud's in 1966: I pushed open its plain black door to discover two dimly light rooms.
[10] "By the mid-1970s," writes historian John D'Emilio, "San Francisco had become, in comparison with the rest of the country, a liberated zone for lesbians and gay men.
"[13] Other San Francisco lesbian bars of the 1970s, included Peg's Place, which initially had a dress code and drew a more conservative crowd,[14] Scott's Pitt, home to "leather-clad motorcycle women and old school dykes",[15] Wild Side West, which started in the bohemian era of North Beach,[16][17] Leonarda's, with a strong butch-femme culture,[18][19] Amelia's, and A Little More, both dance clubs which drew a varied crowd.
[35][36] More exclusive, upscale clubs for queer and bisexual women like Clementina's Baybrick Inn, which offered a hostel and cabaret entertainment, provided alternatives to the neighborhood bar of the 60's and 70's.
[31] Democratic politician Carole Migden began her political career when she decided to run for city supervisor during a conversation at Maud's.
In addition to the trend towards sobriety, and the growing availability of establishments and organizations where women could meet, Maud's once free-wheeling, countercultural clientele "had gotten more middle class, moved to the suburbs, and bought houses.
The event was documented in Paris Poirier's 1993 film Last Call at Maud's,[40][41] which featured interviews with Streicher, bar manager Susan Fahey, and some of the bartenders, as well as patrons Del Martin, Phyllis Lyon, Judy Grahn, and Sallie Gearhard, and others.
[42][43] The film was screened internationally and received positive reviews from press that included The New York Times, the Village Voice, Variety, and the Toronto Star.
[44] "What makes Last Call at Maud's so interesting," notes the Village Voice, "are the intersection of the sweep of history with the smallness of one social circle.
[46][47] In the 1990s, Case wrote about Maud's in her essay "Making Butch", which looked back on the 1970s as she had experienced it with the bar as "her central training ground".
While acknowledging the valuable qualities of community bar life, the essay also discusses its addictive elements, as well as race relations and evolving gender roles.
'[47] She described the bar as a place "where lifestyle politics met closeted, ghettoized behavior, where middle class drop-outs, students and sometimes professionals met working class people who had slim, but tenacious hopes of doing better; where the 'sexual revolution' broke the code of serial monogamy, where costume and hallucination affronted sober dress codes and drink.
Reasons given range from gentrification to rejection of gender binaries to social media and online dating to less of a need for exclusive lesbian spaces as LGBT people are more accepted in society at large.