Yes, downtown Fairfax comes alive on weekend nights, with seven nightspots in just a few blocks. At the same time that Fairfax is pulsating, San Anselmo is sleepier than Sleepy Hollow. A big night in San Anselmo is a dinner reservation at six followed by a PBS special.

It’s always been that way, as this newspaper item from a while back confirms: “An occurrence took place at the barroom at Fairfax on Sunday, in which bottles, clubs and all handy missiles took a part.” The date: Sept. 30, 1875.

That was also the year that the weekend picnics began. At the first one, a crowd of 3,000, who had come by train from San Francisco were described as “the vilest and most unprincipled of her male and female savages.”

Picnics were staged almost every weekend for San Francisco social clubs and other groups for decades at Fairfax Park. The “park” was a private picnic grounds with its own indoor dance pavilion (the largest on the West Coast at the current Pavilion site), plus saloons and small hotels.

By 1906, several bars also lined the dusty streets of Fairfax, including Fairfax House, Fairfax Tavern and Hill Side Tavern. Even after the picnic crowds dwindled, San Francisco hordes flocked to the Marin Town and Country Club behind the current Fair Anselm Plaza. It started as Pastori’s in 1912, then became the Emporium Country Club in 1925 and Marin Town & Country Club in 1944. Bands from the city played far into the night at the club’s Redwood Bowl outdoor dance floor. The club finally closed in 1972, but the Fairfax party tradition had been firmly established.

San Anselmo, meanwhile, built its reputation as a quiet family town. The town went “dry” in 1907, even before the rest of America did 13 years later. This forced the owner of a Drake Boulevard bar to move the barroom into his home 100 feet to the west—just across the Fairfax line—to stay in business.

While San Anselmo frowned on nightlife, Fairfax embraced it and still does. The town’s 2009 official proclamation, proudly posted outside one of three establishments on the same block to offer nightly live music, reads: “Congratulating 19 Broadway for providing 25 years of music and entertainment in the town of Fairfax...[which] continues the Fairfax party tradition…in a friendly, laid-back, charmingly funky atmosphere.”

While 19 Broadway may be Marin’s best live-music bar, its rivals on the block aren’t far behind, making bar-hopping a breeze. If you don’t like the scene or the music at one place, stroll a few steps down the sidewalk—just as Fairfax old-timers once did.

A speakeasy stood at the current site of 19 Broadway during Prohibition; now it’s more like a “speak loud” (to be heard over the music), with fewer bottles and missiles thrown.

Next along the row is The Sleeping Lady, on the site of the old Fairfax House, a roadhouse and saloon that opened in 1884. The Lady is a restaurant by day and a family-friendly club by night (minors are welcome). Beer, wine and a variety of live music—jazz to Middle Eastern to traditional Irish—are served nightly.

Next is Peri’s, with the cocktail-glass neon sign over the door. The nightly bands are usually rock, blues or country. It’s still owned by a Peri (Charles), whose family roots in Fairfax date reach back more than a century. Peri’s opened in its current location in 1948. 

Nave’s, just around the corner on Bolinas Road, opened even earlier, in 1935. It’s a frozen-in-time dive bar with a pool table and jukebox; the Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh is a former habitué.

A few more steps up Bolinas is Gestalt Haus (“Beer, Brats & Bikes”), a no-frills, kick-back joint with communal tables, board games in bookcases, specialty bottled beers, German sausages and bike hooks on the back wall. Vintage bikes adorn the loft windows. “People can have a conversation here without the music drowning them out,” says the manager, Yuri, who goes by one name. It’s open till 2 a.m., except on Sundays and Mondays.

One block farther out on Broadway and Bolinas, respectively, are two more late-night spots that double as restaurants--123 Bolinas and Iron Springs Pub & Brewery. The former is a new wine bar that also serves artisan small plates; the latter offers Wednesday and Saturday night live music with its microbrews.

As for San Anselmo, some restaurants like Cucina and Insalata’s have small bars inside. But the only pure bar, Matteucci’s, isn’t even downtown—it’s on Greenfield. No town proclamations are posted outside.