No longer restricted to the gay ghetto, men and women are discovering the offerings and acceptance of a new kind of bar
Tyler Curry
Tyler Curry | Contributing Writer
As the gay culture goes, those of the pink persuasion have typically been confined to their designated pocket of the city. Affectionately known to many as the “gayborhood,” Cedar Springs is where the Dallas same-sex culture has thrived for years.
With a rich history of community, frivolity and cheap drinks, the businesses in the Dallas gay area have also prospered thanks to their dedicated patrons and, let’s be honest, an entirely captive audience.
The area has become hallowed ground for all of the city’s gay men and women to flock to for a safe place to be themselves and meet others looking for friendship, love or just a good time. Everyone past the age of 25 has a story of when they first ventured to J.R.’s or Sue Ellen’s and the thrilling escapades that followed. But these days, with the gay rights movement moving forward at record speed, the draw to our city’s homo hangouts are waning as the emergence of queer bars continues to flourish in the Dallas social scene.
A queer bar isn’t a gay bar, but an alternative bar that creates an environment that’s open to all types of people. These places are just the right amount of trendy and casual so that both the heterosexual and homosexual crowds feel at ease. But for the gay audience, there is a particular appeal to the queer bar that the managers on Cedar Springs are finding harder to avoid.
Queer bars offer an infusion of variety that is lacking in the traditional gay party scene.
With a name like Beauty Bar, this place has no choice but to be quite gay friendly. With an eclectic and funky boutique, excellent music and a happy hour that offers a manicure with your martini, this is the perfect definition of a queer bar. On any given weekend, you can find this bar’s dance floor mixed with gays, straights and in-betweens. With this hipster crowd, half of the fun is trying to guess which team the cute guy across the bar plays on.
The South Side NYLO pool bar offers a chic and sophisticated option for anyone looking for some city ambiance with his or her spirits. This rooftop hotel bar offers 360-degree views of the Dallas skyline, expertly crafted cocktails and zero judgment.
If you are looking for something a little more casual, the Windmill has been attracting gay bar defectors for years. This no-frills bar offers one hell of a pour, sans pretention, and is right next to the guilty pleasure of the Tin Room. The old school cafeteria tables add just the right amount of kitsch to this dive.
These are just a few of the many bars around the city that Dallas’ gays are more and more frequently calling their own. No longer confined to conventional gay establishments, homosexual men and women are adding a little gay to places that fit the rest of their personalities. But with the emergence of the queer bar, will the gay culture of Dallas inevitably suffer?
Despite the country appeal of Round-Up, the sports-centric Woody’s and the subtle variations between the rest of The Strip, there are only modest differences between the ambiance and aesthetic of the gay bars on Cedar Springs. These places offer little in the way of interesting drink menus, trendy décor or signature style that appeals to the tastes of the individual in all of us.
Instead, we are left with three simple classifications: Dance, Drink or Dive.
This 3-D model has sufficed for the last several decades due to the fact that most gay men and women were rather uncomfortable when venturing off of Rainbow Street. Now that we are safely past the days of strict homo/hetero sorting, the attraction of a mixed crowd has dramatically increased.
The popularity of queer bars, mixed with the more prominent app-based meeting forums, have led to smaller and smaller crowds on Cedar Springs. Many fear that if these trends continue, the Dallas gay culture will become homogenized, and our traditions will be gentrified through hetero-mixing.
But the trend to venture out is far from an attempt to assimilate with our heterosexual neighbors. It is merely evidence that Dallas is further embracing the diversity of its residents, and there is less need for the strict homo zoning of the past.
You are more and more likely to see a visibly gay group cackling next to a table of straight males at Katy Ice House, or a mixed table laughing away at the Grapevine, possibly the original Dallas queer bar. Maybe the proximity to such hetero-culture will rub off on homosexuals. But it goes both ways as many more straight men and women become more accepting of communal spaces and just a tad more gay.
No matter how much these bars develop into their queer category, they will never replace the fundamental appeal of a gay bar.
In a way, these bars are the birthplace of the gay rights movement and will forever be considered home to most of us, whether we want to admit it or not. So no matter how close or how far we move away from our roots, the sentiment of home will forever keep us coming back to visit.
The Dallas gay scene is a thriving hub of history and culture that deserves to be preserved for the people it has served for decades. But just like any demographic niche, we must continue to progress with society in order to survive. Some specific homo-establishments just may need to re-evaluate who their competitors are and compete to attract their desired audience.
They are no longer dealing with a captive audience and will need to take into consideration what their customers want, not just what they will settle for.
That means evaluating and adapting to the interests of our population and attracting new groups so that our culture can be shared.
You know, if the straight men and women of Dallas knew just how cheap and strong a drink is from J.R’s or Alexandre’s or how fun a turn around the Round-Up dance floor is, us gays might just have the overpriced cocktails of Uptown to ourselves.
Beware of what you wish for …
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition January 17, 2014.