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Rainbow Lounge causes politically ‘neutral’ coffee shop next door to close its doors
November 27th, 2009Here’s an interesting little column from The Star-Telegram’s Bud Kennedy about how the now-world-famous Rainbow Lounge is being blamed for forcing a “family coffee shop,” the Gallery Art Cafe, to move from its location next door on South Jennings Avenue in Fort Worth. The coffee shop’s owners say they like the owners of the Rainbow Lounge, and acknowledge that said owners did everything they could to keep bar patrons out of the coffee shop’s parking lot. But ultimately it appears as though the Rainbow Lounge was generating too much trash, traffic and gay people for the coffee shop’s previous customer base, which included many churchgoers who would congregate there on Sunday mornings. Now I don’t know much about this neighborhood, and I don’ t mean to sound crass, but ultimately I would say that maybe it serves the coffee shop right. Kennedy reports that this summer as the Rainbow Lounge started to become popular, the coffee shop refused to display posters and newspapers serving the gay community. The coffee shop’s owners explain that they wanted to remain “neutral” and were trying to stay “out of politics.” But that’s just it: As a business owner, politically neutral means you cater to the people who are most likely to spend money with you, regardless of who they are, even if that means becoming a predominantly gay coffee shop. It’s LGBT economic activism on its smallest scale, really. If you don’t accommodate us, you lose our business, and in many cases it will cost you dearly. Even one of the coffee shop’s owners, who happens to be a former Assemblies of God minister, now admits “that the decision might have been a mistake.” Gee, ya think?
P.S. — On a related note, it’s Black Friday and I just received a text message from HRC. The text says that if you text SHOP and a business name to 30644, HRC will send you the business’ equality score.
Tags: Fort Worth, Rainbow Lounge
November 27th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
This reminds me of a story I heard a number of years ago about a dry cleaning business in Oak Lawn. The owner, a late middle-aged conservative lady loudly and publicly proclaimed that the gays were NOT, I repeat, NOT going to infiltrate her quaint, peaceful little neighborhood of Oak Lawn. Period, end of story. She wouldn’t have it and she was, quite adamantly, not going to let such a thing happen. That dry cleaning business is now JR’s. As for the coffee shop in Fort Worth, well that is LIFE. IN. THE. CITY. If they didn’t want a gay bar next door, they could have challenged the issuance of the various permits that had to be secured before the club was allowed to open for business. At this late date, they can go complain to someone who cares.
November 27th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
And then there was Lucas B&B. The 24-hour coffee shop had a huge gay clientele. The owner apparently didn’t know that and one day told the Times Herald (I believe) how she hated gay people. Within six months, Lucas B&B was closed. Almost 30 years later, only the sign remains in front of what is now Pappadeaux. Successful business owners know that, in the end, hatred doesn’t pay.
November 27th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
What are we going to be blamed for next? They hate us, they close our businesses, they (cops) harass us on the streets, they don’t protect us! Most smart owners accept out money and they should realize if they are prejudice in any way they will not get the dollars.
November 27th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
The coffee shop failed to take advantage of a guaranteed customer base, with bars on both sides of the coffee shop, changing the coffee shop into a hamburger shop would have made all the difference. The coffee shop was very seldom open after hours say (4pm to 10pm) when they could have the most business.
“The crowds scared the families off” and “They refused to display newspapers and posters serving the gay community” these excuses for going broke are just crazy.
Bad management pure and simple.
November 27th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
James Simmons & David Taffet:
Let’s not let a litte Truth creep into a good story; after all, we’re in Texas. The “owner” was the always-irrascible Aunt, who also rented plenty of apartments to gays all over Oak Lawn. The Lucas family, and we –the original residents of Oak Lawn, their friends and neighbors– were all moderately amused. You both have that crazy aunt, too; maybe yours doesn’t get a quote in the afternoon paper. Lucas’ B&B ran on and on for years until the kids decided to have A Life; the property underneath pompous-a-Deux (oddly, run by the Lucas-like zany Pappas of Houston, who ALSO have a wacky gay-phobe aunt…) still belongs to the Lucases, who have always been gay-friendly.
Same deal with the laundry which is now JR’s: you “heard it” years back so it must be true. Our hurts are real: we did “take over” Cedar Springs and the Stepladr and other straight bars moved elsewhere. What’s sad about the coffee shop is that they embraced a customer group who closed them by not coming, because they were next to a gay bar, not that they ignored the gay bar.
Good stories nonetheless but I don’t think any business owner, including their neighbors, would wish a lost business on anyone.
November 28th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
The Rainbow lounge got press from bieng a target of hatred, nothing more, nothing less ……South Jennings has always been FT.Worths ‘Cedar Springs’.There was at least 5 gay clubs there at one time.One got ran over by a drag queen then went up in flames..The Corral burrned down and the land sold to the hospital distric and Mamma’s legacy, The Magnolia Station.will be a police sub station..There are plans for more gay orentied business to open on South Jennings..I guess a chuch lady coffee shop was not in the plans…
November 29th, 2009 at 1:17 am
I read the original story, and Mr. Kennedy didn’t do much history or fact checking for his story.
The coffee shop was originally started as a gay oriented coffee shop: art work for sale on the walls, coffee drinks and food with gay names, rainbow flags, Dallas Voice newstand, etc. It was a nice place, and I went there for lunch and supper whenever I had business in dowtown Fort Worth. During lunch time, the customer base seemed to be mostly medical people in scrubbs from the local doctor’s offices, hospitals, and nursing homes. In the weekday early evenings, it was a more of a mix of medical people and gays eating supper. In the later evening, the business seemed to be mostly gay guys with laptops and a lot of gay male teenagers and college students. The gay male teenagers seemed to do a lot of french kissing and appeared to use it as a date place.
One day I went into the coffee shop and as looking for a Dallas Voice and was told that the coffee shop had been sold and the new owner had all the gay stuff removed. They also said the new owner had also told the gay teens they couldn’t hang out there anymore. I got on the internet and found that gay sites, including the Dallas Voice, were all blocked. The place was empty except for me on a Saturday night about 8pm. A few weeks later, I noticed a sign that said they were only open for lunch. For months they were only open for lunch. So, I’m not sure how the bars impacted their business since they weren’t even open during the evenings.
Eventually, they re-opened for the evenings, but it was only 5pm to 10pm. LIke most gay bars, the Rainbow Lounge doesn’t get busy until after 11pm or so, so I’m still not sure how the Rainbow Lounge impacted their business. Their parking lot always had empty spaces up until 10pm.
I know of two other small independent coffee shops between the “gay strip” and the hospitals. After Gallery Art Cafe closed at night, I went to these instead.
The manager at one of these told me the real reason business was dead: Starbucks finally had opened a new store in a new buidling nearer to the hospitals. I drove by and sure enough, Starbucks has a new building and it was packed. It’s hard to complete with a Starbucks that’s closer to the medical businesses, in a new building, and in a safer neighborhood with a well lighted parking lot.
Also, in general, Starbucks has been the kiss of death for many local independent coffee shops.
I think the Dallas Voice should revisit this story in a couple of months. Now that Gallery Art Cafe has moved to a gay free location, let’s see how viable their business is. Let’s see how long their business can last.
November 29th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Stephan Pyles, the gay restaurateur who used to operate Star Canyon in the heart of Cedar Springs and got his start on the line at The Bronx, told me how when he first worked around C.S., there were very few businesses. One, Adair’s, sold great hamburgers… but they moved to Deep Ellum because the neighborhood got “too gay.” Good riddance, Pyles said. They thrived in Deep Ellum, where customers were tattooed ravers and piercing salon customers. And Hunky’s moved in.
November 29th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Lee Chevalier:
You are so full of it, an apologist and a re-historian.
I was there when theses things happened…I lived in Oak Lawn during the very early 80’s and saw the changes you discussed.
Sorry for your disappointment, but I’m always happy when a business owner, especially in a “gay neighborhood”, who doesn’t embrace his or her LGBT customers, goes belly-up.
If a business owner is making his buck from the LBGT community, he or she better go to great lengths to not only support that community in return, but to distance himself from any anti-gay crazy aunts who won’t shut up.
November 29th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Our ministry is starting a new, sister church, in Fort Worth. The ONE Church is a GLBT Affirming ministry, and I am it’s Gay pastor. The folks at the Rainbow Lounge have been abundantly kind and cooperative in helping us get the word out. We hope to possibly be able to set up shop near the RL at some future date. Ft Worth has never really had a GLBT “area” or “strip” as Dallas has, and I wouldn’t be at all oppossed to our ministry ultimately helping our GLBT community in Ft Worth to establish one. Let the “neutral” folks move on. More for us, as my Portuguese grandmother used to say! LOL
November 30th, 2009 at 9:34 am
I second what Mark said, I occasionally have to go to Fort Worth for work and that area where the Rainbow Lounge is and this coffe shop is very very dead most of the day. And if the coffee shop kept early hours, I can’t see how RL affected business there.
December 7th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
This is a very sad example of bigotry and intolerance.
Not against gays, but BY gays against others who hold different beliefs and opinions. “Let the neutral folks move on” really shows great tolerance /sarc. How do gay people like being told “We’re straight here and if you don’t like it move on?” Evidently not very much, yet that doesn’t seem to stop them from saying the same thing to anyone who doesn’t “embrace” them.
Having patronized plenty of the gay/lesbian-owned or “gay/lesbian oriented” restaurants and bars here in NYC, I can say first-hand that any perceived hatred and bias by straights against gays is reciprocated 150% by gays against straights. Often to the point of obscenity, and occasionally to the point of violence.
If gays would show the tolerance and respect towards straights that they want to receive, they would in fact receive it.
And speaking as a customer, I don’t want to have to watch *anyone* — gay or straight — French-kissing or engaging in any other type of foreplay while I’m trying to enjoy a meal. Especially teenagers, as in “under-age minors.”
Whatever your orientation, a little dignity and discretion, not to mention respect for those around you, go a long way towards fostering tolerance.
Apparently, and unfortunately, this is something the gay/lesbian community still needs to learn.
# # # #
December 7th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
“New Yorker” is out of his mind. He reminds me of folks in the 1960’s who would say, I have black friends…” (and therefore, at least in their minds, they were experts on being black in America). If you haven’t had to live the reality of being Gay in this society, you area fool to think that doing business with Gay owned/operated businesses make you some kind of legitimate expert on such matters. Give me a break! As one who must daily endure attacks and accusations from right wing fanatics, I can tell you that much of Gay “anger” is quite legitimate, as was the anger of so many Blck men and women in America as they too were being demonized, stereotyped, misrepresented in the media and on film, and denied access and opportunity for no other reason than the color of their skin. Your comments are idiotic at best, and sheer foolishness. I lived in NYC for the entire decade of the 1990’s. To think that NYC even remotely resembles Fort Worth, or even Dallas, in terms of it’s tolerance of Gay-Lesbian people and the variety and number of Gay-Lesbian establishments is to live in la-la land! You haven’t a clue as to what you are speaking of, and then, to add insult to injury, you compare apples to watermellons. Not very smart.
December 7th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Agreed, Pastor Charles. Not sure what NYC is talking about. There’s no indication from the article that there’s much more to the story than the straight people who own the coffee shop just didn’t want to serve a gay clientele. And when they moved in, there were other gay bars in the neighborhood.
December 7th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
NYC = New York City. I think they (the Coffee Shop folks) just weren’t happy with all the publicity being generated by the Rainbow Lounge incident. Unlike Dallas, Ft Worth doesn;t really have an entire neighborhood that is identifed as being primarily Gay. The publicity surrounding the Rainbow Lounge raid probably made it too obvious to the Coffee Shop’s clientele that they were so close to a GLBT establishment.
December 16th, 2009 at 6:31 am
Issues like this become more clear when we get back to what used to be an obvious fact: Homosexuality is a behavioural disorder. It’s not fair to society in general to treat gays as if they were an ethnic group deserving special “rights” based on their deviant behavior. The domain of any given right sometimes infringes upoon other rights, therefore countenancing “gay rights” results in an unfair infringement on legitimate rights. Homosexuals have rights like any other person, but they don’t don’t deserve special consideration for their perversions.