What's the name of the first gay bar you ever visited - and where was it?

[pupHawaii]

I saw a post like this on bsky/Bluesky .. thought I'd repost the question here.

Mine was The Warehouse, Hartford CT .. i think gone now.  The bar was in the old Olivetti-Underwood (typewriters) factory.  And by coincidence my grandfather use to work there for many years ..

[bareback-flipflop]

I’m not hundred percent sure but I guess it was the Angyal (in English Angel) Bar. It was one of the pioneer gay bars if not the very first one. Classic bar, with a small dark room and regular drag shows. It closed 15-20 years ago but then it operated in a different location. 

[Tanbbottom]

Rumors,  Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. It was owned and operated by a group of gay men and a group of lesbian women.  It was in a converted old movie theater, so a great big open space! It closed down when the liquor licensing board threatened to pull it's license because women were dancing toppless. The women agreed they would stop if the men kept their shirts on. The men refused and this wonderful gender inclusive Queer space was lost! 😪😪😪

[BigDirtyBear]

Ramrod Boston....  

It's gone now, like so many places the real estate is now worth $$$$$$ and was torn down and high rise apartments "The Bon" now built on the land.

[Tanbbottom]

This is where I finally came out of the closet at 30 years of age.

I loved dancing there,  'I'm too sexy for my shirt  ....'

[BritFFPig]

The Coleherne, Earl’s Court, London. Got my arsed fucked many times by guys I picked up there. It was a starting point for many young guys first experience 

[PozToxVersPig]

The Golden Bull in Santa Monica, CA right off of PCH. [think before following links] https://goldenbullsantamonica.com/

It is also a steakhouse. The owners are/were a gay couple. In my family, we have 8 gay cousins spread across, 5 that are now in late 50s to mid 60s. 3 of us now 45 or 46.

Back when the younger ones (me included) were together for family functions, the older ones were left to the care of us. 

So me, my 2 cousins - perhaps first at 12-13, got taken by our older cousins because at night it became a gay bar. A popular one too. The elder cousins were 25 or older but the youngest wasn’t yet 21 but didn’t look like a child either.  

 I don’t know what the elder cousins were off doing, but me and my two younger cousins would sit and play cards and the owner would bring us glasses of what I learned was Galliano.  We’d end up drunk and sleeping, the cousins would have their night. We’d all end up back at my grandmother or cousin’s house somehow. 

As we got older (and all of us could legally drink), it stil remained a tradition for all of us to try to go together once a year.

At 18 I did blow one of the Mexican bus boys behind a fence in the parking lot.

After that, it was my 21st birthday.  First bar was Mother Lode for pregame followed by the Abbey, both in WeHo (back when it only had one tiny toilet in a tiny bathroom for the whole place). I did C off the back of a cop car and drank too many sour apple martinis. Then had sex with my boyfriend at the time and some trick. 

[PERVERSATILE]

I was an underage dick dancer at The Chesapeake House* in Washington DC. Does that count?

*I think some kind of sports-ball stadium was erected upon the crushed rubble of its former infamy.

''Whores and metaphors do not mix'' -Reverend Peter Shayne

[BlindRawFucker1]

I think it was called Angles, in Las Vegas.

 

When the cab driver dropped me off, he asked, “You do know that this is a gay bar?”

 

When I told him I knew, he said, “I just wanted to make sure.  Have fun and be safe.”

 

That was very nice of him to make sure that I did know.

[onlyraw]

I am blanking on the name …. I “think” it was Going My Way in Madison, Wisconsin 

it was the summer of 1977, I had graduated college and was home for the last summer before moving to Boston
I managed to find what I think was most of the gay community in Janesville… and early in the summer I borrowed the family station wagon and drove 6 of us up to Madison….
 

As you walked into the ground floor of the bar it was the “gay” bar.  the third floor was the “lesbian” bar and on the 2nd floor was the mixed gay and lesbian dance floor 

One of the guys in the group that I drove up I had known since 5th grade … when we both had our first male teacher in grade school (we had him his first year teaching) and low  and behold …. There he was sitting at the bar Mr. Ringer …. We recognized him and he recognized us  …. So he insisted on buying us our first round of drinks. 

After that first trip, Most Friday or Saturday nights that summer I borrowed my parents big Buick station wagon and drove 6 of us up to the bar 

it was a great summer 

then that fall I moved to Boston … and suddenly instead of having to drive 45 miles to the nearest bar …. my apartment had 5 or 6 bars within a 10 minute walk 

I think the first one I went to was Styx (which was right next to Chaps)

Chaps was the “clone*” bar and Styx was for the “less butch” shall we say …. A bit more polyester than flannel 

interesting side note …. At Styx - on one of my early visits I bumped into one of my college professors…. Who then dated one of my friends for some time …. 

 

* “Clone” …. For those of you younger than 60 …. A “clone” typically wore … work boots, jeans (straight leg or boot cut …Not bell bottom) flannel shirt, and  bomber jacket. They had short hair and a mustache…. And if needed… wore aviator glasses.

[NWUSHorny]

C-Street in Champaign around 1989-90. It looks like it burnt in 2017 and never reopened.

 

[FelchingPisser]

On the night I came out to my older brother (and he to me) he took me dancing at The Rubaiyat, the gay disco (on weekends) of Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Later we went to the neighborhood bar, The Flame, which was incredibly dirty and grungy.  This would be 1976.

[spunkdump]

Sweet memories-- Uncle Charlie's in NYC  village neighborhood on Greenwich village.  That was so fun -back when NY was a magical place.  I think every NYU freshman went there for the first time -that and BoyBar in the East village on St Marks.

[freshxtop5]

The Roundup in Pensacola while I was in college 

[PGHBttmBear]

It’s called S4 (Station 4) now but it was originally The Old Plantation in Dallas. At some point in the 80s it changed its name to Village Station. The other club that I went to at the same time was The Starck Club.