Many of the new bars in high-density gayborhoods like Hell’s Kitchen and West Hollywood may continue catering to a narrower demographic, namely cis gay and bi men. “In some places that means appealing to straight allies, but in all places it means appealing to the vast diversity of all LGBTQ+ people.” Those that can retain existing patrons while drawing in new ones can still be successful, he says. “Gay bars are on the decline, but they’re not going away, they’re evolving,” Mattson says, noting that new LGBTQ+ bars have been opening constantly over the last 20 years. “Alejandro has been an event where I felt the most in my body while being perceived by others.” “I knew that I could really put my passion for cocktails and creating space for queer folks, and women of color especially, into Nobody’s Darling,” Riddle says. “We are an upbeat, women-focused cocktail bar, but we really try to create space for all communities,” says Renauda Riddle, who with co-owner Angela Barnes took over the space previously known as Joie De Vine, one of the city’s few lesbian bars. Nobody’s Darling, an elevated cocktail bar in the Andersonville neighborhood of Chicago, has been so busy since opening in May 2021, its co-owners are already expanding next door and scouting a second location. Guisinger, Peshke, and Escobar are now working out their strategy for operating Singers as a cocktail bar and multi-use venue. It looks very unassuming from the outside.” Erik Escobar, an old friend of Guisinger's, helps with daily operations and manages the bar's programming and social media. “With the design, we really wanted it to almost feel like someone's home. Revamping the space, which was previously a restaurant but had been vacant almost four years, was a collaborative DIY effort, Guisinger says, with help from friends who run a furniture studio and others who do plaster work. “Obviously, COVID is still out there and we weren't sure what that was going to be like.” But pent-up demand and the bar’s word-of-mouth appeal has paid off. “It was definitely a little nerve wracking,” Guisinger says of the timing for opening Singers, the first business venture for both him and Peshke, who previously hosted popular house parties. With this year’s arrival of Singers and Oddly Enough, a polished queer cocktail bar, Bedstuy is getting more venues that expressly welcome LGBTQ+ crowds. While the queer-owned music and performance space C’mon Everybody opened in 2015, the area lost another bar, One Last Shag, the following year. “More than anything, we opened it as a space for our friends to have fun,” Guisinger says, adding that he and co-owner Brooke Peshke have lived in the neighborhood for about 10 years and recognized a need for more queer bars. “We wanted to create a queer space, but really didn't want it to be a gay bar,” says Mike Guisinger, co-owner of Singers, which opened this spring in the Bedstuy neighborhood of Brooklyn, with events that included a twinks-versus-dolls wrestling contest in a lube-filled kiddie pool. (R) The interior of Nobody's Darling in Chicago. Another 16% of gay bars have gone under in the past three years, a rate consistent with their prepandemic decline. More than a third of queer bars and nightclubs in the United States closed between 20, according to studies conducted by Greggor Mattson, a professor of sociology at Oberlin University and author of the forthcoming book Who Needs Gay Bars?. The pandemic has laid waste to all manner of in-person businesses, and gay and queer bars have been no exception, with longtime establishments in big cities, alongside queer venues of all kinds across the country, closing their doors.Īnd yet, COVID-19 has marked only a slight acceleration of a trend that has been underway for nearly two decades. Then Boxers and Barrage and Posh all shuttered, leaving New York City’s gay bar scene worse for the wear. THE INN BETWEEN BAR FREEFirst it was Therapy, the two-story carriage house where they served nachos around the dancefloor, then 9th Avenue Saloon, the beat-up dive where barflies swarmed the free popcorn. They toppled like dominoes in Hell’s Kitchen.
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