Holy City Zoo

Four hundred eight Clement Street is a narrow storefront in the Richmond District that housed the Holy City Zoo, a legendary incubator for stand-up comedy from the mid-seventies until the early nineties. It began as a folk music venue in nineteen seventy-one, named for a sign the original owner scavenged from a defunct zoo in the Santa Cruz mountains. The comedy era started by accident when an impressionist named Jim Giovanni began performing nightly sets between musical acts.