Est. 1927 · Prohibition Era Speakeasy · Dashiell Hammett Connection · California Coastal Heritage
Frank Torres chose his location carefully. The coastal cliffs above Moss Beach, in San Mateo County south of San Francisco, offered exactly what a Prohibition-era bootlegger needed: fog, privacy, and direct beach access for offloading Canadian whiskey from boats offshore. Torres opened Frank's Place in 1927, and it quickly became a destination for San Francisco's politically connected and artistically inclined.
Dashiell Hammett, who was writing the fiction that would become the foundational texts of American hard-boiled detective novels, drank at Frank's Place and used it as a setting in his work. Silent film stars from the San Francisco film community were regulars. Torres maintained relationships with local politicians and law enforcement that kept the establishment clear of raids throughout Prohibition.
When Prohibition ended in December 1933, Torres had no need to change much. The building, the location, and the clientele remained. The restaurant transitioned to legitimate operation and has continued without significant interruption since — nearly a century at the same address on the Moss Beach cliffs.
The restaurant changed ownership multiple times across the 20th century. The current name, Moss Beach Distillery, references the building's Prohibition heritage.
Sources
- https://mossbeachdistillery.com/history-ghost/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moss_Beach_Distillery
- https://moonmausoleum.com/the-lady-in-blue-of-moss-beach-distillery-from-the-speakeasy-era-in-california/
Phantom soundsPhantom smells
The Blue Lady legend is one of the most thoroughly documented cases of deliberate haunted-venue theater in California. The story describes a married woman who conducted a secret affair at the speakeasy and was killed walking on the beach below the cliffs. The legend was broadcast on NBC's Unsolved Mysteries, which gave it national reach. Psychics consulted over the years provided conflicting names — Mary Anne, Morley, Cateye — for the Blue Lady.
In 2008, the Ghost Hunters (TAPS) team arrived to investigate and found, instead of paranormal evidence, a series of installed devices: a speaker that triggered ghostly laughter in response to motion sensors, a ghost face that appeared in a bathroom mirror on a hidden screen. The executive chef subsequently acknowledged the devices existed. The restaurant's management at the time had constructed the haunting experience.
A 2009 analysis by SFGate's Kate Dowd established that no documentation of the Blue Lady legend exists before 1981 — decades after the speakeasy era the story is supposed to describe. The historical details attributed to the legend could not be verified in newspaper archives, court records, or any primary source from the 1930s. The conclusion that the story was created by the Sarnos, a former ownership pair, during a local business interview appears well-supported.
This debunking is part of the restaurant's documented history now. The genuine story — Prohibition rum-running, Dashiell Hammett at the bar, Canadian whiskey off the beach in the fog — is more interesting than the invented one, and the debunking itself has become a layer of the restaurant's character worth discussing over dinner.
Notable Entities
The Blue Lady (Debunked)
Media Appearances
- Unsolved Mysteries (NBC)
- Ghost Hunters (debunking episode)
