Artie Mitchell and his brother Jim Mitchell were pioneers in the production of pornographic films and "adult entertainment" in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. They also founded the O'Farrell Theater on San Francisco's O'Farrell Street. Hunter S. Thompson, a regular customer who once was employed as the night manager of the porno palace, praised it as "The Carnegie Hall of public sex in America."