Have fun and send me a personal message if you need more info. These are sweaty, rough and ready places. Popular places are the George and Dragon on Hackney Road The joiners arms also on Hackney road and East Bloc on City Road (also Dalston Superstore in erm Dalston - but thats a bit out the way) Shoreditch is popular with the beardy, skinny jeans, vintage vest "fashion set". Then as the night goes on you may want to go "proper" clubbing in Vauxhall.įire is a popular place but it depends what night is on (check the mags) - there are lots of other big clubs under the arches too.ĭuckie at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern is popular on the Saturday (only open till 2am though) and the Eagle is popular on Sundays for Horse Meat Disco. Ku Bar (Frith Street) and Ku Bar (Lisle Street) Profile (and below it Lo-Profile) - bar and club owned by Gaydar Clientele have changed since I used to venture into G A Y, seems now it is a younger crowd ( with the odd 50 year old sitting with a pint) who generally cannot figure out where to stand. GAY Bar (and also GAY late which is around the corner) - these are seperate places but owned by the same people who run GAY club at Heaven Rating des Ortes: 2 London, United Kingdom A large- ish venue with good drinks ( as in there is actual alcohol in them that you can taste). Soho is a good place to start - venues include: They have listings of whats on - and i think one of them also has a map showing the venues. In Soho go to Old Compton street and pop into any one of the gay bars there (GAY being the easist to spot) and pick up a copy of Boyz magazine and QX magazine (both are free). This article first appeared on PRI’s The World.Agree that the 3 main areas are Soho, Vauxhall and Shoreditch - though there are a scattering of other gay pubs / clubs in places like Clapham (The Two Brewers and the Kazbar) Greenwich Camden etc.īut you are probably best off staying "central" 3, and will vacate the property by Sept. 13. The bar is hosting a farewell party on Sept. But heritage and historical groups protested the proposal, and a local council blocked the redevelopment completely. Developers wanted to build apartments in The Yard’s courtyard. The two pubs faced almost identical situations. The Yard & its rich history live on #SAVETHEYARD
We can't thank you enough for your support. We did it! The landlord has lost the appeals. Just across town from The Queen’s Head in Soho, a well-known gay bar called The Yard just won a two-year battle to stay open. “Public houses in total are closing at an alarming rate because they’re standing on prime real estate that can be made into extremely luxury apartments,” Sipson says. “They just have to get on their phones, find a picture and off they go.”īut gay bars aren’t the only ones closing. The number of UK pubs of any kind is down from 67,800 in 1982 to 51,900 in 2014, according to the latest data from The British Beer and Pub Association. “Today they don’t have to” visit the bar to meet partners, Sipson says.
Gay bars once provided rare opportunities for LGBT people to meet. But today, Sipson says, the barriers are down.Īnother factor could be the rise of online dating apps like Grindr or Tinder. Heterosexual people generally mingled in one section, and the rest of the bar belonged to the LGBT community. The Queen’s Head own clientele suggests that a change has taken place.įor many years, straight bar patrons self-segregated. “The older generation like myself, we’re dying out.”
“A lot of the younger gay people feel like they don’t need to go to the gay bars like we used to do back in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s - places where would be ourselves and discover ourselves,” Sipson says. One theory is that the gay bars may not be needed today as they once were, as mainstream society becomes more accepting of homosexuality.
The dispute behind the closing of The Queen’s Head might seem specific, but it comes after a year of prominent gay bars closing abruptly across London.