Courtesy Elizabeth BoenningĬohen reopened her bar in September at limited capacity in compliance with government rules. “Business is still horrible.” Walker's Pint has been closed since March 17, 2020, on what would have been the city's popular St. “Things really haven't changed much,” said Boenning, who has had to cut the number of days and hours her bar is open. She said the bar reopened at the end of June in compliance with rules that limited capacity to around 50 percent. A number of the roughly 15 surviving lesbian bars have already reopened at limited capacity - like Walker’s Pint in Milwaukee, Wildrose in Seattle, Gossip Grill in San Diego, My Sister’s Room in Atlanta and Lipstick Lounge in Nashville, Tennessee - though it is unclear whether some that closed amid the pandemic will ever reopen.Įlizabeth “Bet-z” Boenning, who owns Walker’s Pint, Wisconsin’s only lesbian bar, said she received a small loan from the federal Paycheck Protection Program in the spring, just enough to cover expenses while the bar was closed under government-mandated lockdown orders for nonessential businesses. In many cities, bars are the only spaces where LGBTQ people can come together, but for queer women, these spaces are now almost nonexistent, leaving an already isolated community even more alone. Now, that number has dropped by at least one, with many others barely surviving. Just two months into the coronavirus pandemic, in early May of last year, NBC News reported there were only 16 lesbian bars left across the U.S., compared to about 1,000 bars that cater to gay men and mixed-gender LGBTQ crowds. The pandemic has exacerbated an already troubling trend for lesbian bars. Philadelphia's last lesbian bar, the Toasted Walnut. “There just takes a level of energy that I need to focus on that versus trying to fight this,” said Cohen, who permanently shuttered the Toasted Walnut in January. When she was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer in December, she realized it was the end of her bar. Business was strong at the Toasted Walnut, Cohen said, until the pandemic struck last March, forcing her to temporarily shut its doors in compliance with government orders.īut $11,000 in rent was still due each month, and Cohen struggled to keep up.
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