The car crashes into the Dovre Club, damaging the long-standing Mission bar

This morning a car crashed into the Dovre Club at Valencia and 26th Street, temporarily closing the popular neighborhood bar. Additionally, the intersection will look significantly different for a while now that the iconic Dovre Club sign that has hung on the outside of the building for decades is gone. Currently.

“At 9:25 a.m. I got a call from a patron saying someone had just driven into the bar,” bar manager Dee Deem, who was also among the first on the scene, said in an interview outside the bar.

The damage was minor, she said. “The bar itself wasn’t really impacted,” she said. The front doors are broken and a support beam outside the bar has been completely removed.

According to both departments, police officers and firefighters responded to 26th Street and Valencia Street at 9:12 a.m. today for a hit-and-run collision.

Two cars collided, one of which crashed and caused significant damage to the Dovre Club building. According to San Francisco Fire Department Captain Jonathan Baxter, two adults from the cars were injured, but the injuries were not life-threatening.

According to the San Francisco Police Department, the suspect driver fled the scene on foot, abandoning the suspect vehicle at the scene of the accident. Officers soon located the suspected driver near Folsom and 26th Street and arrested him.

Henderson said paramedics assessed the victim at the scene while the suspect was taken to the hospital for evaluation.

All of the above information is preliminary as police are still actively investigating the collision.

The iconic Dovre Club sign was taken down by firefighters following the incident for safety reasons and carefully stored in the bar. “The firefighters said it was falling and so it was safer for them to tear it down,” Deem said.

The bar is expected to be assessed by the Building Inspector today. According to manager Deem, it will be closed tomorrow and will remain closed until a structural engineer, licensed plumber and licensed electrician confirm the building is safe. “Hopefully we open as soon as possible,” she said.

The Dovre Club was founded in 1966 at the Women’s Building location on 18th Street between Valencia and Guerrero Streets and moved to 26th and Valencia Streets in 1998.

Over her 20 years here, Deem has seen Dovre change with the people who live on the block. “The bar is an integral part of the neighborhood,” she said. “This bar is a third place for a lot of people in the neighborhood. A lot of the people who don’t have strong social lives at home, people who have roommates, people who just maybe don’t want to go home. Instead they come here. The pool is free, the drinks are cheap and the community is good. The whole bar is literally made up of the people who come here.”

She would like to express her gratitude to the community who came out to support her this morning.