D.C.'s Bt Gay Bars and Hangouts - Eater DC

Contents:

• LICHT CAFé, D.C.’S NEWT GAY BAR, IS A COZY, ART-FILLED U STREET HIAWAY
• THE U STREET CORRIDOR FALLY HAS A GAY CLUB AGA
• D.C.'S BT GAY BARS AND HANGOUTS
• ESQUIRE NAM TRA ONE OF AMERI’S BT GAY BARS FOR SEND YEAR
• NEW ‘GAY WATER’ LOOKS TO AVOID BUD LIGHT DISASTER
• OFT BANNED GAY THOR’S NEW KIDS’ BOOK A FUN TREAT
• A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.

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

Owner Spencer Hurd moled Licht after his favore gay fé Mannheim, Germany. 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.

THE U STREET CORRIDOR FALLY HAS A GAY CLUB AGA

“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.

D.C.'S BT GAY BARS AND HANGOUTS

“We’re hopg to make a gayborhood Shaw, ” he told Eater last month.

Meet Kiki, an Excg New Gay Bar Replacg a Pair of Shuttered Shaw Div. Val Dupont Gay Bar Cobalt Is Closg After Two Des. Bunker, a subterranean gay club, opened s massive doors to live DJ sets on Thursday, Febary 23.

In the past three years, all of the cy’s siar clubs have closed, cludg Cobalt, Secrets, DC Eagle, and the largt gay dance club D. While Bunker is the first bona fi gay club D. McDaniel was former general manager of A League of Her Own at Pchers, and Pike was both a bartenr and head of secury at the Adams Man gay bar.

ESQUIRE NAM TRA ONE OF AMERI’S BT GAY BARS FOR SEND YEAR

The bar also sponsors Washgton Prodigy (women’s tackle football), as well as gay softball and kickball. 's evolvg gayborhood has shifted towards Logan Circle and U Street. In Febary 2016, the Washgton Bla noted an "unual flurry of activy" wh the openg of four new gay bars, the majory of which land the U Street/Shaw/Logan Circle area.

Those spots and more sports bars, dance clubs, and cktail havens are all clud Eater's round up of the District's gay-iendlit bars and hangouts. New gay dive bar Tra opened last year, urty of the team behd Town Danceboutique and Number Ne. New to the Shaw/U Street gay bar scene is Uproar, which buted last year.

“We’ve been throwg events now for que a few years, and the District, after the closure of really every gay nightclub — both before COVID and then durg COVID — has really been lackg a te dance floor, ” says Zach Renovát, one of the Bunker -owners.

NEW ‘GAY WATER’ LOOKS TO AVOID BUD LIGHT DISASTER

The Ltle Gay Pub – Photo: Do Sevilla.

The other new addn, The Ltle Gay Pub, is the brachild of three longtime rtrant and bar dtry fixtur — Do Sevilla, Dty Martez, and Ben Ganr. The -owners, who have a bed experience of 37 years the bar and rtrant dtry, have a shared visn of The Ltle Gay Pub as a “gift” to the muny, providg an LGBTQ space for people the Logan Circle/Shaw neighborhood where one currently do not exist, and where there’s a arth of drkg or eatg tablishments that n rival those near the Walter E. “It looks like an old hotel vibe, a very W Anrson-y take on quirk, where pomp and circumstance have been shelved and taken over by three quirky gays who cid to overrate to s next eratn.

OFT BANNED GAY THOR’S NEW KIDS’ BOOK A FUN TREAT

The Ltle Gay Pub has a kchen that the owners plan to utilize, begng wh about a dozen food ems that one uld classify as “elevated pub food, ” meang more than your typil ied pub fare.

While the liquor license and fal settlement agreements are still beg procsed, the tr behd The Ltle Gay Pub note that their spotls rerds, as far as ABRA vlatns, and their longstandg reputatns appear to have aid them openg whout much phback om the cy, scribg the procs of applyg for var licens and perms as “drama-ee. The Ltle Gay Pub is aimg for a soft openg around March 1, pendg on how quickly a liquor license n be obtaed.

“Why don’t they have more gay villas, ” Whe said, “I liked wrg Ernte. Whe, who liv New York, was a -founr of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and of the 1980s queer wrers group The Vlet Quill. “Whether ’s evotive pictn of gay life durg the tumultuo 1980s, pastakgly rearched bgraphy or elegant memoir, Whe’s work stands out across s as s ronance … for a multu of voted rears.

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

) Whe has been lled the “godfather of gay Amerin lerature, ” Prceton Alumni Weekly has reported. “I’m workg now on a sex memoir about the lov of my life, ” Whe, who 1977 -wrote wh Charl Silverste, “The Joy of Gay Sex, ” said. Beg gay was sful and illegal.

In that era, “the three most heo thgs Ameri were hero, munism and homosexualy, ” Whe wrote an say. “Or they would try to get passn for gays and prent as sick sad stori, ” Whe said.

A new nned cktail lled Gay Water is lookg to attract LGBTQ drkers and avoid the pfalls of Bud Light’s disastro marketg partnership wh transgenr fluencer Dylan Mulvaney. The mixture of vodka and soda water, long known rmally as “gay water” the LGBTQ muny, is the brachild of 30-year-old gay entreprenr Spencer Hodson. He noted that the nctn aims “to stigmatize the word ‘gay’ by brgg reprentatn to spac that have not tradnally featured queer products, such as bars, liquor stor, grocery stor, rtrants, hotels and more.