I’d never been to New Orleans, and so I’d tagged along. I’d come to New Orleans as a sort of stowaway: my wife’s friend had an extra ticket to the game, and had invited her down for the Thanksgiving weekend. The game was in the waning minutes of the fourth quarter, with the Bills in a commanding lead. A few couples, all men, sat scattered around the triangular bar, drinking from plastic cups (necessary for a city where you can take beverages to go, and drink openly on the streets). But I’d come early in the night and the place was quiet. Lafitte in Exile, in New Orleans’ French Quarter, is the oldest continuously operating gay bar in New Orleans, and a must-stop for LBGTQ+ tourists looking for the famed city’s gay scene. I settled into a seat at the bar and ordered an Aperol spritz, reassured I’d come to the right place.
Then I caught sight of the rainbow flag, and a series of framed plaques lining the interior walls, each defining “ Queer” in creative and empowering ways.
I looked around for a quick exit, fearing I’d stumbled into a straight bar by mistake. In my experience - admittedly, mostly limited to Boston’s Club Cafe - gay bars played Anderson Cooper on CNN, followed by music videos, if they broadcast anything at all.īut football? In a gay bar? No way. Yet there it was, the Thanksgiving showdown between the New Orleans Saints and the Buffalo Bills, blasting on the screen above the bar at Lafitte in Exile. Jeffrey Palmquist and Frank Perez, In Exile: The History and Lore Surrounding New Orleans Gay Culture and Its Oldest Gay Bar (LL Publications, 2012).I hadn’t expected to see a football game televised in a gay bar. ( Courtesy of Frank Perez) Nearby Sites of Interestħ24 Dumaine St., New Orleans 70116 (504) 680-0128 () The letter is on permanent and proud display on the wall just inside the front door. Navy sent a letter to the bar declaring it off limits to personnel of the U.S. By the 1960s, the bar had a notorious reputation as a cruise bar that is, a place for gay men to have anonymous sex. The bar quickly became an institution in its own right, attracting loyal customers like Tennessee Williams, who was a regular when he lived in New Orleans. According to legend, on the night the bar opened several regulars from the old bar went there to have one last drink and then picked up their barstools and marched down the street to the new bar. In response to hostility from the new owner, the gay patrons moved one block down the street and opened their own “Café Lafitte In Exile,” so called because they saw themselves “in exile” from their former bar-home. The bar had a sizeable gay clientele there until 1953 when the building came under homophobic ownership. Founded in 1933, the bar was originally located one block away at the current site of Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop. 901 Bourbon St., New Orleans 70116, (504) 522-8397Ĭafé Lafitte in Exile is the oldest gay bar in New Orleans and arguably the oldest continually operating gay bar in the United States.