Of all the places Shomari Kirkwood expected to find the next, best lesbian bar of her life — the first floor of an East Hollywood Super 8 motel was not on the list. But that’s where she’s posted up, at a little spot called Honey’s at Star Love.
“I've been in LA for two years now, and I feel like I don't go out enough. I don't do enough things. And so when I saw this event happening here, and it was a sapphic event, in my heart of hearts, I was like, ‘This is the time to go outside, to meet people, to maybe ho it up, I don't know,’” Kirkwood tells KCRW.
Honey’s opened up back in February and it’s also kind of a big deal — it’s one of the first lesbian bars in the area in years.
LA’s last spot –— the San Fernando Valley’s Oxwood Inn — shuttered its doors for good in 2017. It left the second-largest city in the U.S. without permanent, brick and mortar lesbian bars. And it’s not just LA – according to the Lesbian Bar Project, a documentary campaign that’s tracking these spaces — only 27 lesbian bars remain in the U.S.
Monthly pop-ups and other residencies have helped meet the demand of LGBTQ+ Angelenos over the years, but it hasn’t always been enough.
“It's so much easier to show up and show out at a place that has roots that feels permanent,” Kirkwood points out.
Read more: Inclusive dining: Gender-affirming hospitality and queer-owned pop-ups
“Everyone’s just like me”
Honey’s falls on the smaller side when it comes to nightlife venues, split up into a bar, dance floor, and lounge area with cozy booths. What it lacks in square footage is made up in conscious design. Ferns and other plants hang from the ceiling, candles and antique lights illuminate the space, and the walls are painted in aesthetically pleasing pastel tones. And as at any gay bar, a massive disco ball shimmers and spins above the dance floor.
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As Kirkwood puts it, Honey’s is homey.
“It’s a space that feels intimate and in the way that we have the stereotype of lesbians uhauling. There is something nice about the space that just makes it feel right to just on a first night out, share all your traumas with someone and then be like, I think this can work.”
Across the bar, two self-described elder lesbians Flor Espinoza, 47, and Joyce Landicho, 52, came out to Honey’s after dinner and are digging the vibe.
“We were just standing there watching a full dance floor of all women dancing, where women could be who they want to be without any kind of interruption from people who aren't queer,” Espinoza says. “It's a space where we don't feel like we're different. It's a space where you walk in and you're just like, ‘Everyone's just like me.’”
Kirkwood feels the same. She says in her experience, many queer spaces aren’t welcoming for folks who don’t identify as white gay men. But at Honey’s, she says she’s free to unapologetically be who she is — a Black, trans woman.
She points to her outfit — a hot pink maxi dress and white, platform sneakers: “I've worn [this] only on one other occasion. And I can do it and feel confident that the space I'm entering will appreciate it and me in my identity, rather than it feeling like people are looking and laughing at me when they walk past me.”
Creating a space this inclusive is at the core of what Honey’s is all about, says Charlotte Gordon, who opened the space with her partners Kate Greenberg and Mo Faulk.
“Honey’s started, and other spaces have started, because there's just such a need for it. I think the pandemic was a big part of that,” Gordon says. “People were realizing how isolated they felt. A lot of people came into their sexuality. So there's this renewed passion for finding spaces and community for your queer identity.”
A different vibe in Silver Lake
It’s not just Honey’s that’s shaking up the lesbian nightlife scene in LA. The Ruby Fruit splashed onto the scene in a small Silver Lake strip mall just days before Honey’s opened. Co-owners Mara Herbkersman and Emily Bielagus took over the space in February and now it’s a lesbian wine bar that offers small plates and other snacks.
Bielagus says they aspire to make it as relaxed as the watering hole on the groundbreaking Showtime show about lesbians in LA.
“We're like The Planet from ‘The L Word.’ We really are like, ‘Come in the morning, bring your laptop, drink coffee, talk shit, talk about the night before,” Bielagus says. “When it's wine time, you can start drinking wine. You can have a lovely dinner. And then you can be in bed by 10 o'clock.”
Read more: ‘A Cheers for lesbians’: The Ruby Fruit slated to open in Silver Lake
The duo stress that their bar, while it is specifically created for queer women, is open to others as well.
“We want to be very clear that our space is for anyone who falls under the lesbian umbrella, regardless of your gender identity and expression,” Bielagus explains. “We are a strip mall wine bar for the sapphically inclined, and we use that term very intentionally. Because sometimes — not always, but sometimes — the word ‘lesbian’ can be somewhat alienating to members of the gender-expansive community.”
But as LA enters this brave new world of lesbian bars, will these spots last? Or will they close down like so many of the spaces that came before them?
Kirkwood says not if she can help it.
“We do have to show up, show out, be here — on a Monday and I want to drink? Bam. On a Wednesday? Bam. A day like today? Bam.”
She adds, “The freedom of a place with roots means it's also easier to invest and not feel like my heart's going to be broken or some event is going to go the way of a Netflix TV show and disappear after a year.”