By 1960, Richmond’s Village Inn was starting to earn a nationwide word-of-mouth reputation as one of the alcohol-vending establishments (the Seven Seas in New Orleans, the Blue Moon in Seattle, the Cedar Tavern in New York, and Vesuvio in San Francisco were other examples) where gigless be-boppers, itinerant artists, nonacademic poets, freelance photographers, practicing existentialists, self-proclaimed revolutionaries, dharma drifters, “angel-headed hipsters,” full-time eccentrics, and newly christened beatniks of varying plumage could expect to be tolerated by management and welcomed by
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