Licht Café, D.C.’s Newt Gay Bar, Is a Cozy, Art-Filled U Street Hiaway  - Eater DC

Contents:

• THE 5 BEST WASHGTON GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS WASHGTON
• THE BT GAY BARS WASHGTON, D.C.
• AS SEATTLE’S GAYBORHOOD MIGRAT, CAPOL HILL QUEER BARS FIGHT TO REMA A REFUGE
• ‘LEG’ REUNTS GAY MAN’S EXPERIENCE WH CEREBRAL PALSY
• THE BEST WASHGTON DC GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS WASHGTON DC
• LICHT CAFé, D.C.’S NEWT GAY BAR, IS A COZY, ART-FILLED U STREET HIAWAY
• THE BT GAY BARS SEATTLE, WASHGTON
• THE 5 BEST SEATTLE GAY CLUBS & BARSSEE ALL THGS TO DOGAY CLUBS & BARS SEATTLE
• A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.
• CHILEAN LAWMAKERS REJECT PLAT AGAST GAY TN MISTER
• WASHGTON DC GAY BARS
• THE U STREET CORRIDOR FALLY HAS A GAY CLUB AGA
• THE 5 BEST SEATTLE GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS SEATTLE

THE 5 BEST WASHGTON GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS WASHGTON

7 plac sorted by traveler favorGay Bars • Dance Clubs & DissGay Bars • Dance Clubs & DissWhat travelers are saygIt's not the bt bar on the is often a ver is very bar, many bars, even a dance floor. The Buck is attached to the Global next door were one si is gay the other not so much.

THE BT GAY BARS WASHGTON, D.C.

SieNampa, ID70 ntributnsThis is the first gay bar I've ever been to where ppl were the vib almost seemed hostile. The natn's pal is home to a lively LGBTQ+ nightlife scene wh plenty of gay and lbian bars jt wag for you to jo on the fun. Larry’s Lounge is a gay neighborhood pub, wh always-affordable drks, solid happy hour specials, mouth-waterg pub fare (see: sweet potato tots) and one of the cy’s iendlit pats (you n brg your dog, too!

Number Ne to the btlg Logan Circle urty of -founr Ed Bailey, who helped DC’s gay nightlife scene to grow durg his days as a DJ. Suated right the heart of Adams Man’s btlg 18th Street is Pchers, a gay sports bar, and A League of Her Own, the adjacent bar for lbian and queer women.

AS SEATTLE’S GAYBORHOOD MIGRAT, CAPOL HILL QUEER BARS FIGHT TO REMA A REFUGE

The Bt Gay Bars Washgton, D. —our natn’s pal, if you’ve managed to fet—has been scribed as “the gayt place Ameri.

‘LEG’ REUNTS GAY MAN’S EXPERIENCE WH CEREBRAL PALSY

” As an epicenter, gay drkers n fd no shortage of optns, om sports bars to cktail bars to dance clubs, many of which are ncentrated near Dupont Circle and 17th Street, where gay bar-hoppg is prime. Perhaps the most unr-the-radar gay bar to outsirs, as well as the most polil of Washgton's gay bars, the Der is home to high-profile Democratic and Republin operativ who regularly put asi polics when they arrive for the party. Grab a Lemon Squeeze (the bar's mastay cktail), a pile of tater tots and ntle to a booth to see and be INFO →KNOWN FORfull menucheap datebar foodCobaltCobalt has long been a mastay on the District's gay-centric 17th Street Corridor.

INFO →KNOWN FORdancgcheap datefull menuDacha Beer GarnDacha isn't an official gay bar, but you wouldn’t know by the crowd. In keepg, beware: It n get INFO →KNOWN FORcraft beeroutdoor / patbar foodDo's Bar at FlorianaIn the basement of an Italian rtrant off the very-gay 17th Street, Dupont Circle, is Do’s Bar.

He's been servg drks and hostg at the ty hiaway for a now, and is beloved by the gay and straight crowds INFO →KNOWN FORcheap datefull menuJR's Bar & Grill The “grill” part of JR's Bar & Grill is mostly absent.

THE BEST WASHGTON DC GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS WASHGTON DC

Gay bar scene attractg polished polis and beefy at boys.

For years, the bar banned dancg but fally relented after a of prsure by patrons—not that there's much room to dance; between trivia nights and happy hour, n be packed cheek-to-cheek most of the INFO →KNOWN FORcheap datedancglive micLarry's LoungeYou won’t fd Larry’s Lounge listed on any gay bar map of Washgton, D.

LICHT CAFé, D.C.’S NEWT GAY BAR, IS A COZY, ART-FILLED U STREET HIAWAY

Not officially a gay bar, not officially a straight bar, Larry’s is jt Larry’s. C’s gay muny.

They’ll merely check on you om time-to-time to make sure you’re still alive and to brg you ee INFO →KNOWN FORcheap datebar foodoutdoor / patNellie's Sports BarWhen Nellie's first opened 2007 at the rner of 9th & U Street, NW, some wonred if a gay bar uld thrive a lotn so far removed om the center of Washgton’s gay nightlife scene. But, as the cy’s gay muny has moved east, Nellie's (named for the owner's grandmothers—y, multiple grandmothers) now the most popular gay bar all of D.

THE BT GAY BARS SEATTLE, WASHGTON

Though 's billed as a sports bar—and ser sports fans fely e here to tch a game—the TVs rarely factor on DJ nights when crowds pack Nellie's rooftop INFO →KNOWN FORsportscheap datelive micdancgfull menuNumber 9When the owners of the wildly popular gay nightclub Town Danceboutiqe set out to open a cktail bar, they named honor of their nth venture together.

The space—prevly a rather unspirg gay bar—was rernated as a dim, morn lounge wh a foc on ser cktails. Gay women are always hard up for great bars, and recent years have seen the closg of long-tablished lbian jots many ci. While that le is gone ( creasgly wel gay men, as long as they rpect the bar as a space for women) you will still fd a..

THE 5 BEST SEATTLE GAY CLUBS & BARSSEE ALL THGS TO DOGAY CLUBS & BARS SEATTLE

INFO →Town DanceBoutiqueThe District's largt gay dance club, Town Danceboutique (known as “Town” to lols) is the place meet someone new. Like a gay-Amerin Moul Rouge, Town is a glterg maze of baret, gogo boys and edy shows that create a sort of what-uld-happen-next circ atmosphere.

Tour historic LGBTQ+ s, grab a drk at the bt gay and lbian bars the cy, rock out at Capal Pri and so much more. At the time, the queer bars I pass are stg silent and shuttered: Pony, whose signage announced 2014 to a changg neighborhood, “This is a very gay bar. I cut through Cal Anrson Park, named after Washgton state’s first openly gay legislator.

As spac close or relote search of cheaper rent, there is an opportuny to rethk both the nature of queer space and the boundari of Seattle’s gayborhood.

A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.

My two gay bt iends and I were dner regulars at the Broadway Grill; hnted mortuary-turned-gay-bar Chapel; and danced our hearts out at club and drag performance venue R Place, where I always felt wele, both before and after I me out as queer and genr-expansive. Its five female founrs chose the space for s large wdows, a revolutnary move durg a time when “gay bars were more like speakeasi, ” as Manng told the Seattle Channel, hoed dark, hidn spac. But vlence isn’t the only threat to the gayborhood.

“When Capol Hill first started gentrifyg, I’d be [workg the] door, and people would ask, ‘Why are there so many gay bars here? The gayborhood of my youth was punk-rock and unashamedly queer, a rehg ntrast to the homogenized culture and merce that domated downtown and the suburbs. Dpe the “myth of gay affluence, ” LGBTQ people face higher rat of poverty than their cisgenred, heterosexual peers, along wh barriers to social servic and health re.

The gayborhood has moved before, however, and uld aga. At the time, strict laws regulatg sodomy, same-sex dancg, and drag forced them unrground, but most “gay bars end up simply payg off the police to prevent them om beg harassed, ” says Peter Boag, profsor and Columbia Chair the History of the Amerin Wt at Washgton State Universy.

CHILEAN LAWMAKERS REJECT PLAT AGAST GAY TN MISTER

This bribery system ma Seattle “a hot town for gay people, ” as turn-of-the-century performer Hannah Banana once scribed , wh vville and drag at s center. At the Garn of Allah, Seattle’s first gay-owned baret, renowned performers such as Skippy LaRue were drawg both gay and straight crowds 119 years before Ru Pl’s Drag Race beme a cross-cultural phenomenon.

WASHGTON DC GAY BARS

The historic Dorian Society opened a muny center there 1969; the Uned Ebony Council, a Black gay male anizatn, formed 1975, and both groups met at the Mombo Rtrant and Lounge, whose owner helped end the police bribery system.

Seattle’s first publicly gay bar, Shelley’s Leg, opened 1973, terg primarily to lbians, wh other woman-oriented bars followg su. But as gay and lbian activism gaed tractn the 1970s and 1980s, however, s lears displaced many of the genr-expansive people and BIPOC who drove the origal movement. “They created a very gay Capol Hill, but they also displaced a lot of Black and Brown muni.

O’Stayformore has found hom Geetown for her drag show, Ban Strip; Burns scrib Whe Center’s nascent gayborhood as remiscent of “old Capol Hill, ” wh a more diverse scene that clus some of the olr lbians who might once have graced the Rose’s booths and barstools. While much of this progrs n be creded to the gay and lbian activist cultur of the 1960s and ’70s, the irony is that they created a future where the next generatn of queer people feel ls affy wh the “G” and “L” labels — and the spac that go along wh them.

THE U STREET CORRIDOR FALLY HAS A GAY CLUB AGA

Even Toce, spe her publitn’s name, don’t necsarily intify wh the word “lbian” (she prefers “gay”), but feels that the Seattle Lbian is “fillg a niche the muny that I thought need to be there. Gay women are more likely than men to marry or habate, pecially Washgton state, as well as to divorce; this siphons patrons off the lbian bar scene first when they “nt, ” and aga when they bee sgle parents. ” She would like to see more queer space that targets patrons at “different pots our liv, ” such as 25-year Hill veteran Gay Cy, which boasts a library and ffee shop along wh arts and culture programmg, youth servic, and health and tnal rourc.

But jt as the gayborhood has transformed before, perhaps n happen aga.

One of the lovely thgs about is that the st is so queer – om Jane Lynch, the seri’ narrator, to thor Roxanne Gay, who plays Jezanna. Along wh the st, which is a stellar ensemble, the seri is filled wh memorable, movg, energizg soundsp: om lbian softball players battg to footage om the 1987 Natnal March on Washgton for Gay and Lbian Rights. Owner Spencer Hurd moled Licht after his favore gay fé Mannheim, Germany.

THE 5 BEST SEATTLE GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS SEATTLE

His dream: lnchg a cktail bar moled after his favore gay fé Mannheim, Germany.

“The goal is to foc on the classic cktails, rather than jt vodka-sodas and rose Kennedys, as you may get at other gay bars, ” he says. Licht Café is a reference to the spiratn om his go-to gay spot Mannheim, but also reflects his ial zy space. “I love art and sign, ” Hurd says, “and I wanted to make the bar unapologetilly gay.

“I want the to be a bid edgy—this is a part of gay culture. The U Street NW strip’s gay bar scene is on the up as of late. Kiki owner Keaton Fedak, the former general manager at nearby gay bar Dirty Goose, will expand Kiki to the next-door space that formerly hoed dive Dodge Cy.