Located on the southeast corner of Main and Mulberry streets in the Fan, Bamboo Café, arguably Richmond’s best bar, has a colorful, celebrated existence. If only someone knew who created it.

“Started by a bunch of hippies back in the ’70s,” explains owner Adrienne LaPrade, who began working for the strong-pouring establishment in 1980 and says no one can recall who the bar’s founders were. “I started as a waitress. That’s what we called them back then.”

Whoever founded it, Bamboo opened for business in 1974. Today, it’s a Richmond institution that attracts a healthy cross-section of the city. On any given night you’ll find punks and professors, young and old drinking and dining together at the storied watering hole with the red awning, checkerboard tablecloths and a comically long list of daily specials.

On Saturday, the Boo will celebrate its golden jubilee with a block party on Mulberry Street with music, merch and food. Prabir Trio, Tiny Lights, Noel Haven, Piranha Rama and Barstool Heroes will perform. A portion of the event’s proceeds will benefit Richmond Animal Care and Control.

While everyone is welcome at Bamboo, the place has a particular attraction for restaurant industry workers, musicians, actors and journalists who are drawn by its heavy pours, late kitchen hours and lived-in vibe. The booths and floor are worn. The paint on the tin ceiling is peeling a bit. The TV is usually showing a baseball game or a black-and-white movie. The bar is overseen by a waving Chinese cat figurine who holds a written note from management: “NO BIRDS ALLOWED.”

It’s not the type of place to order an espresso martini. It is, however, the type of place to order a drink you could imagine Frank Sinatra throwing back. All that really changes, longtime employees say, is that everyone gets older. Children who were brought to Bamboo by their parents grow up, then bring their kids.

Recently, a man visited Bamboo who hadn’t been there in 29 years.

“One of the first things he said: ‘It doesn’t change,’” says Mariam Farrell, who has worked at Bamboo for 22 years.

For many Richmonders, Bamboo functions as their second living room, a clubhouse where everyone knows your face; it also happens to be where this reporter legally married two of his friends at one of the front tables. Bamboo has legions of people who call it home, no matter how often they “Do the Boo.” A certain contingent refers to themselves with the possibly un-P.C. moniker “Bamboodists.”

“It’s everybody’s safe place,” says Kris Hill, who’s worked at Bamboo for 13 years.

The gas pipe next to the outdoor smoking area has its own Instagram handle; another account documents every time its operator has a bloody mary at the establishment.

Longtime regulars may be surprised to learn that Bamboo’s highballs, which are strong enough to stun a yak, weren’t always a thing.

“When I started here, we did not have central air and we didn’t have a liquor license,” LaPrade says. Instead, wine and buckets of beer were the norm.

Why are the pours so strong that even seasoned regulars wince when they take their first sip?

“We just have heavy hands,” explains Elizabeth Evans, who marks her 30th year working at Bamboo this month.

While the bar’s superior club sandwich has been a mainstay of the menu since the start, not every offering has stood the test of time. The cod in marinara sauce is one item that’s best left to memory. The chopped sirloin is another.

“It was a hamburger patty with onions and green peppers on it,” LaPrade remembers of the latter. “It was disgusting.”

The place has been around long enough to have a healthy amount of intrigue surrounding it. For instance, even those who have visited Bamboo many times may be surprised to learn about the secret pie menu. Buttermilk, chocolate chess and Key lime are typical offerings.

Employees swear it’s not a secret; it’s just time consuming for servers to put together, so they don’t volunteer its existence.

“We push the liquid desserts,” Evans says.

The rumor that whoever makes the pies is repaid by being compensated for ingredients and the ability to pay 1970s happy hour prices for drinks? Completely unfounded.

That time a woman fell through the front window? Well, that happened, but within a week the story had spiraled to the point where the woman lost an arm in the incident, which wasn’t true.

Against the back wall, under the hanging mirror, is table No. 7, a strange, skinny half booth that’s raised, giving its occupants a perch from which to watch the entire bar. The booth has different names: “The Penalty Box,” “The Bus Stop,” “The Statler and Waldorf Booth,” referencing the Muppet characters. I like “The Lifeguard Stand”: from this vantage point you could potentially save people from drowning.

Every few years, the debate over whether Bamboo qualifies as a dive bar makes the internet upset. While the interior is definitely well-loved, this reporter contends that it’s actually a neighborhood bar. Is there another dive bar that has ahi tuna with a wasabi glaze on its regular menu?

For their part, Bamboo’s employees don’t mind the association. Chrissie Lozano, a 22-year employee who also fronts Piranha Rama, defines a dive bar as “a place to slip in and get a nice-poured drink” and says Bamboo definitely qualifies.

Bamboo has had its run-ins with fame. In the 1985 HBO movie “Finnegan Begin Again” Bamboo played the part of an ice cream shop where Mary Tyler Moore and Sam Waterston’s characters have a date. In the 1989 ABC movie “My Name is Bill W.” Bamboo plays a bar where James Woods’ title character meets some business associates. Fittingly, “Bill W.” is about the creation of Alcoholics Anonymous. Bamboo itself was also the subject of a song by Prabir Trio, fronted by local musician and Bamboo regular Prabir Mehta.

As loyal a fanbase as it has cultivated, even Bamboo wasn’t exempt from the problems the pandemic wrought on restaurants.

“It was weird and hard and scary,” says LaPrade of the pandemic, before lauding the federal Paycheck Protection Program that extended a lifeline to businesses. “Thank God for the PPP. That saved us.”

Lozano didn’t think Bamboo would make it.

“A lot of very devoted people came and got takeout every day,” she says.

Bamboo staffers say attendance has been up since COVID, though they no longer stay open until 2 a.m. during the week as they did before the pandemic hit.

Some years ago, a woman walked into Bamboo and took a look around the establishment. Thinking that the woman was scoping out the bar for a big party, Evans asked if she needed help. It was one of the founders checking in on the place; Evans wishes she’d gotten her name.

Asked why the founders chose to call their bar Bamboo — which is named after the Bambú brand of rolling papers that were popularized in the ’70s by the comedy duo Cheech & Chong — the woman said she “wanted all her hippie friends to find her.”

The woman came in 10 or 15 years ago, Evans can’t quite remember.

“Time in the Bamboo is just infinite,” she explains.

Bamboo Café’s 50th anniversary block party will take place on Oct. 12 from 1-6 p.m. on the 100 block of South Mulberry St. Tickets are $10 at the gate, with a portion of the proceeds benefitting Richmond Animal Care and Control.

Correction: An earlier version of this story listed the wrong cross street, it is Main Street not Cary. Style regrets the error.