What Does It Mean to Be a Queer Restaurant in 2024? For Each of These Chefs, It Starts With Community

Pop-ups, beach towns, and fine dining are all part of today's queer hospitality landscape.

Beyond the spectacle of Butch’s giant toolbox-turned-host stand, servers wearing tool belts instead of aprons, and a delicious menu studded with innuendo-titled items like finger foods and tossed salads, exists an immersive, authentic restaurant celebrating queerness at every opportunity.

For chef Kelly Fields, who felt burnt out and finished with restaurant work just a few years ago, Butch’s at the Crown — a new restaurant in Provincetown, Massachusetts that’s serving up impeccably cooked local seafood, seasonal ingredients, and Southern-style dishes all while also hosting destination-worthy drag brunches and serving as a gathering place for the queer community — is almost an overcompensation, an unapologetic celebration of their identity, once censored by the culinary community they came up in.

“When people called me butch as a young person, it felt like the most abrasive, most shameful thing I could imagine. I ran from it, hid from it, and fought it,” says Fields. “Reclaiming it is me stepping into myself more than I’ve ever been allowed to be.”

Queer-centric restaurants are nothing new. Safe spaces (or at least safer spaces) to gather have existed for centuries, with dedicated, often discrete bars and restaurants offering refuge to LGBTQ+ folks as far back as the 18th Century, and likely before. These establishments allowed people to congregate in relative peace, without fear of societal repercussions — like violence, harassment, or loss of employment — for being their true selves. (Although it’s important to note that many queer bars throughout history have been primarily safe for cis gay men, excluding transgender and non-white people among other minorities.)

In spite of targeted raids by police and religious groups, queer restaurants expanded their presence in the 20th century. These spots weren’t trendy, and were mostly known within queer circles and guidebooks. The plates of food that were served weren’t meant to be cutting-edge and beautifully-curated, but rather to provide sustenance, comfort and safety. Many of these historic spaces, like New York City’s Florent or the Universal Grill, are now shuttered, as LGBTQ+ people are welcome and legally protected (in most states) to dine out publicly.

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In the post-lockdown era, there’s been an increased craving for shared spaces and meaningful gathering — both in the queer community and others. Combine that with a progressive, inclusive perspective on what working in the hospitality industry looks like, plus record high numbers of American adults identifying as LGBTQ+, and a recipe for a new type of queer-focused restaurant is being cooked up across America, popping up everywhere from beach towns to major cities and plenty of neighborhoods in between.

In 2024, queer hospitality across America is embracing a new identity: one of community, celebration, and intentional purpose, while existing openly, enthusiastically and wholly authentically.

Butch’s opened in Provincetown — a town at the edge of Cape Cod that’s become known as a queer hub — this past May, an extension of a brunch pop-up Fields ran in the summer of 2023 at the Crown & Anchor resort.

The restaurant is a welcoming, authentic space for locals, visitors, and its chef. “I fell in love with the community that I get to feed here,” Fields says. “I am allowed to completely be myself.” From the Billie Eilish-heavy playlist to queer art on the walls and sapphically-inspired cocktails, Butch’s is as “intentionally queer as I can make it,” they say.

The menu is packed with dishes influenced by Fields’ career in the South — where they won a James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef at New Orleans-based bakery and restaurant Willa Jean in 2019—  melded with New England classics. Dishes like lobster deviled eggs and tater tots topped with paddlefish caviar are designed to be shared in the spirit of building community.

"I fell in love with the community that I get to feed here. I am allowed to completely be myself."

Kelly Fields

“I wanted to bring as much flavor to a restaurant in this town as there are flavors of people in the street,” Fields notes. Perhaps more importantly, the proud chef wants to prove the naysayers who told them to be quiet while cooking, remove identity and politics from food, and definitely not be openly queer, wrong. This is what fuels Fields’ re-commitment to the hospitality industry. “Being in community, being genuine, and showing up as myself makes me want to have a restaurant again,” they explain.

The same rings true for San Francisco-based Brenden Blaine Darby, a chef who worked at Arzak and Noma. After a brief restaurant retirement, they found bliss while doing the dirty work — quite literally — at their queer restaurant, Fare Play. “I was scrubbing the toilet and realized there was no one here to tell us we’re doing it wrong,” they say of the restaurant’s collaborative culture, which focuses on building up a team rather than tearing down individuals (a common practice in the kitchen brigade hierarchy). “We’re offering advice, guidance, and teaching.”

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While on a break from working in professional kitchens, Darby started hosting queer pop-up dinners at their husband’s art studio, and eventually found a space on Craigslist for Fare Play, conveniently located within blocks of their favorite farmers market.

Dinners are priced on a pay-what-you-wish system, with food and staff costs — every employee is paid the same amount — listed on the tab, and guests can contribute more than, less than, or exactly what the total cost would be. “We’re just happy to have everybody,” Darby says. “Our community shows up.”

Darby’s best friend, Sergio Garrido-Ramirez, runs the restaurant alongside them, welcoming diners with a boisterous drag queen personality. “It isn’t easy to have levity and joy and sparkle, we can provide that,” Garrido-Ramirez says. “We do it for the people who understand they want something different. We regenerate, reinvigorate, and give back to the community.”

Inspired by family meals, dinners at Fare Play impart “strong grandma’s house energy.” There is comfort food, and there is a lot of it. You can make a mess, eat as much as you want, and take leftovers home — they may even be accompanied by a gift of bread and farm-fresh eggs.

The menu is artful and experimental; Darby’s purple sweet potato gnocchi are a highlight, served with whichever mushrooms the local mycologist recommends weekly. A Caesar salad made of upcycled scraps – shaved kale stems, carrot bits, flowering bok choy, and fried potato skins – is constantly evolving based on what’s available, keeping diners engaged with its artistic chaos.

Everyone leaves with their original paper menu, covered in notes and doodles by the kitchen staff, and in return some diners leave their own gifts on a small altar in the back of the dining room.

“The more we express ourselves, the more people feel open to express themselves,” Darby explains. They've seen the way a few hours at Fare Play can turn around someone’s awful day, and it’s inspiring to witness diners saying goodbye to staff with hugs.

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Fare Play wants to broaden its reach, and while its original location is closed, Darby and Garrido-Ramirez are working on reopening in a new space in San Francisco. The duo will also be taking the pop-up on the road to Chicago, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, and Mexico City in 2025, so keep an eye out in case Fare Play comes to a city near you.

The adaptable nature of a roving queer restaurant is familiar to Jessica and Trina Quinn, the married founders of Dacha 46. Their Eastern European pop-up started with the couple selling pelmeni — which Trina describes as a Slavic dumpling made with a variety of fillings, from mixed ground meats to seasonal vegetables like charred corn or cabbage — from their Brooklyn apartment during the peak of the pandemic.

Dacha soon evolved into a traveling eatery, catering and serving its food at events like Hanukkah banquets, queer dance parties, and neighborhood dinners. The Quinns eventually plan to open a brick-and-mortar location.

“The foundation of our small business is that we’re a queer family, it’s intrinsically part of who we are,” explains Jess. She was moved to see troves of queer Eastern Europeans like herself lining up around the block for Dacha’s tastes of home.

As Trina recalls, Jess was shocked that an entire subculture of folks sharing her distinct combination of marginalized identities existed and longed for connection. “[Customers would] say, ‘you make me feel less alone,’” Jess remembers. “We aren’t just a food business, we are something more than that to people. You’re a part of someone else’s story.”

The creation of HAGS, New York’s first queer fine-dining restaurant, follows a similar trajectory. Founders Camille Lindsley and Telly Justice hosted pop-ups around New York City before opening a slim, stylish space in Manhattan’s East Village in 2022.

“Queerness is permeating every single aspect,” says Justice, on a break from butchering lobster. “Restaurants are all about people, ours is no exception.” The pair, like so many queer restaurateurs, were sick of the strict, culturally homogenous, and conservative tendencies of fine dining, and set out to create a more uplifting dining space with a creative, supportive kitchen culture. “We wanted to try out all the wacky and fun and experimental and weird and sloppy things that were just kind of like always shut down,” shares Justice.

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HAGS’ queerness moves well beyond just flying a rainbow flag outside to signify a safe space. Lindsley and Telly are reinventing fine dining by removing any type of dress code (“glam” attire is suggested for front-of-house staff and guests, which can be interpreted however you’d like, whether that means drag or silk pajamas), thoughtfully reminding diners what it means to celebrate who they are, rather than what others think they should be.

“There are so many ways in which fine dining has traditionally been this hyper-gendered space,” says Justice. “We've had a lot of fun reimagining how we can clear that ritual and that concept.” Staff are trained to avoid gendered terminology, and they don’t follow the outdated concept of serving customers presenting as “ladies” first and “gentlemen” last.

Labeled pins are available for anyone who wants to sport their pronouns, and ADA-compliant, gender-neutral bathrooms are stocked with complimentary safe sex essentials (for use after dinner, not at the restaurant). Safe sharps disposals — places to securely discard syringes and needles — and other harm reduction supplies are also available, making this a comfortable, welcoming space for even more people. It’s fulfilling for the owners to hear from trans folks that they could take their Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) shots in the bathroom, and that everyone who comes in to dine feels cared for.

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Equally as important as its queer-forward and inclusive practices is the delicious, thoughtful, and adaptable food you'll find at the restaurant. HAGS offers both omnivore and vegan six-course tasting menus with optional wine pairings. Creative dishes like slow-roasted lamb loin with stinging nettle pesto, red brassica juice, and farinata, topped with ramp butter and white asparagus, are part of a frequently evolving, globally-inspired kitchen that encourages its cooks to explore queerness through their personal heritage cuisines and comfort foods.

“There's just an excitement and a feeling of accessibility to use your voice and have it be heard and matter in the context of the menu,” Justice emphasizes. “Intimacy is very important to establishing a queer cuisine. We feel strongly about the people we represent on our plates.”

Farmers, shepherds, land stewards, cheesemakers, and more artisans have informal, “handshake” relationships with the kitchen, offering a rotation of seasonal splendor as their bounty becomes available, and building on the community ethos.

At 9 p.m. there’s a walk-in only dessert tasting — so anyone can drop by, no reservations needed — and Sundays include a sliding-scale brunch. The owners call the latter the heart of the restaurant, a time when everyone can enjoy great food in a positive queer space, as individuals from throughout the local community all congregate for lobster hash and vegan grits with roasted wild mushrooms.

As Justice points out, “There’s a vast need to center celebration and joy in the queer community. It’s amazing to look out into the dining room and see so many queers having a great time.”

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