In the 25 years of running Men for Men BBS/GayCalgary the changes to Calgary and Edmonton LGBTQ community have been dramatic, especially in the last 10 years. When my straight friends decided to push me out from being in front of a computer all the time to check out the bar scene, we tried to visit every gay bar in Calgary in just one night. The BBS had already been running; they wanted me to see what the gay community was about in the real world.
The first bar we had stepped into that night was Detours. The bar was quiet with hardly anyone in it = we found out later it had just re-opened under a new branding. Detours had been called Dicks and 318. I had been in the space beside it when it was Empire, before it converted to Arena. It is now Model Milk. Arena had the best drag stage out of any gay bar I have visited in Alberta. There were three levels that you could watch the stage from: the main floor; the mezzanine; and, a little higher up, was the DJ booth and a lounge. The stage height was in between the main floor and mezzanine, plus it had a catwalk into the audience on the main floor. The back area of Detours was called the Loading Dock, which was their lounge for happy hour. The upstairs lounge area of Arena, which was above Victoria’s, was also where Aids Calgary/HIV Community Link had one of their first offices.
After that, we hit BBX (Ballz, Bubblez and Xtasy). This bar did not last long, but it had a lot of potential. The main floor was for dancing, the top floor homed a small lounge, and the basement had pool tables. The space where it was located has seen several bars pass through, as well as an Italian grocery store.
From there we headed to Boyztown Metro and the Rekroom. This place was packed solid full of guys, way over what would be allowed by today’s capacity standards. It did not matter where you went in the bar, you needed to push through the crowd to get there. That location is now the Nite Owl.
Boyztown was as far as we made it that night, so I made it out to Trax – a country western gay bar – on a solo outing. I felt more at home here, amongst the bears and rough and tumble type of guys. The bar was in the space building, but not the same space as Club Sapien on 10th Ave SW.
There were other gay bars open during the first couple years when I first started venturing out, but I did not frequent them as often as I did Detours/Arena, Boyztown/Rekroom and Trax, though they had their own appeal.
One of the bars I wish was still around was the Midnight Café. If you were transgender, a drag queen or a cross dresser, this bar was the place to be. The owners made sure that part of the community had a place where they could be themselves. Every time I was there, it was busy. Even though I had never done drag, cross-dressed or was interested in changing my sex, hanging out at Midnight Café opened my eyes. In the ’80s, guys that crossed dressed were usually represented negatively on TV and in movies, or were used as part of a gag. My mom constantly warned me to ‘watch out for those types of people’, because they are sexually depraved, criminals or have something wrong with them mentally. Even icons who tried to break the gender norms – people like David Bowie, Boy George, Pete Burns of the group Dead or Alive – couldn’t sway the older generations, though the younger generations of the ’70s and ’80s largely accepted them breaking the gender binary.
Hanging out at Midnight Café showed me that transgender individuals and drag queens are just like everyone else out there. They want to live their lives organically; they just want to be happy. There is nothing wrong with them, and the stigma or fear that has been put out there was not justified at all.
After coming out as gay to my mom, I decided to bring her out to meet my gay friends at the gay bars. The first place I took her to was Midnight Café. I introduced her to the owners and several patrons. I was not sure how my mom was going to react. Was it going to be like I put her into a snake pit, or would she open her mind and see them the way I do? I think I opened her mind. After a couple hours there, I took her to Boyztown, where she complained about all the guys using the women’s bathroom, and making a mess on the toilet seats and floor.
There were many gay bars that opened and closed their doors prior to the magazine starting in November 2003, but in the first year of the magazine running, there were still many in operation: Boyztown and the Rekroom; Detours, Loading Dock and Arena; Calgary’s longest running gay bar, the Texas Lounge; the Backlot; Calgary Eagle; Solar Café; Money-Pennies; the Verge; Indulge; and then Twisted Element.
In 2007, I finally took my first trip into Edmonton to check out their community. I visited the Roost, which turned out to be Canada’s longest running gay nightclub, and possibly the longest running nightclub too. The Roost had two floors and a large patio. In the entrance of the bar was a deli, so you could purchase hot food while the bar was open. The Roost staff and management held a special Christmas party for LGBTQ parents so they could bring their kids down and get gifts from Santa.
Boots was just about as old as the Roost. Part of the bar homed Garage Burger, which won several local awards for their grub. Boots hosted events for the Bears, leather community and drag shows. I think I spent the most time in Edmonton at Boots.
There was Prism Bar, which I do believe was the last lesbian bar in Canada. It held a good number of ISCWR drag shows too, and men were always welcome. When Boots closed, the owners of Prism decided to move to the Boots space and rebrand themselves as the Junction. It was a bar for everyone in the LGBTQ community.
On Jasper Avenue was Woody’s and Buddy’s. Woody’s, on the top floor, was a large lounge. Buddy’s, in the basement, was a nightclub. Though the bars had separate entrances, they were run by the same people. Woody’s could open just about all their front windows so patrons could look down upon the street and enjoy fresh, outdoor air without being on a patio. When Woody’s closed, Mama’s Gin Joint took over the space.
We are now left with three gay bars in Calgary: the Texas Lounge, the Backlot and Twisted Element; and only one in Edmonton: Evolution Wonderlounge. Evolution Wonderlounge will be celebrating their fourth anniversary in September, and is the location of some of our video interviews with porn stars and celebrity drag queens.
As I talked in previous columns this year about how much things have changed in the tech world, things have changed equally in the gay bar scene in Calgary and Edmonton. It might appear that because we don’t have more gay bars there has been a collapse in gay culture, but it is not the case. Some closures were economic, others due to market correction, or a lack of demand.
Some of the bars got pushed out of business because their leases got too high; a landlord wanted to change the direction of the building and terminate the lease. Fierce competition from other gay bars was a factor. It is hard to compete if your competition resorts to attacks – making artificial claims of being the "first" or "only", or copying a competitor and modifying it just enough to take customers away from the other, as also happens in the tech world.
Sometimes it was just simply bad management or failure to keep up with the changing tastes of the gay community. In the past, you could open a gay bar, paint the walls a dark colour, play dance music and have customers walk in. Now the LGBTQ community has progressed enough that we can also comfortably go to straight bars, so there’s more competition. Websites like squirt.org, manhunt.net, dudesnude.com and Craigslist have removed the need for hook up spots. You can also easily find other people in the community using apps like Grindr, Scruff and Growlr, which are location specific, and let you find gay men in a straight bar. Straight bars are not immune to similar changes. You can see them closing or rebranding constantly. They invite the gay community in, while the gay bars do vice versa.
When Boyztown and the Rekroom were running, they were a male member only bar, but women could go in as guests. Near the end of their run, they started to allow women to become members too. The younger generations are coming out earlier and their friends accept them for who they are, whereas in the past, a lot of us stayed in the closet and only when we stepped into a gay bar we could be ourselves. There are people in the LGBTQ community who wish we still had our own space, but the demand is simply not there.
A lot of these changes are also happening in LGBTQ media too. The number of gay magazines across Canada has been reduced substantially. There are only maybe two publications still printing in Canada while the rest – just like us – have moved to online only. Our competition is gay media outside of Canada as well as mainstream media that can quickly do an article within a couple hours. We don’t have the staff to pull that speed off. But even mainstream media has been cutting back. The Calgary Herald, Calgary Sun, Edmonton Journal and Edmonton Sun have all their editorial being controlled out of one office in Edmonton. We’re all trying to keep up with the constant changes in media landscape as new technology is introduced or readership changes.
With several of the gay bars lasting 10 or more years, some owners were ready to retire; some passed away. The Texas Lounge has been running for close to 30 years, so having new owners taking over about eight years ago helped keep the brand running, along with some improvement o the attached bathhouse, Goliaths. The Backlot too has gone through ownership change, which has seen them do many renos to the space and provide an amazing outdoor patio.
As of February 1st, Twisted Element is under new owners and management. Unlike the Texas Lounge and the Backlot, where existing staff took over, the new owners of Twisted have taken a hands-off approach to the business. They have put all their trust of day to day operations in bar manager Keon Brawn. Within just a few months, the club has taken some major steps in the community, as you will see in this edition’s advertising. Also look for coverage of more events to be hosted there. GayCalgary is very excited about this next chapter of Twisted Element and happy to again be working with them.
It will be interesting to see what our gay bar scene will be like in the next five to ten years. Take a look at the GayCalgary Website for articles we have done with many of the gay bar owners past or present.
Related Articles
Contributor Steve Polyak |
Locale Calgary | Edmonton |
Topic Boots | Buddy’s | Calgary Eagle | Detour | Evolution Wonder Lounge | Goliath's | History | Indulge | Metro Boyztown | Money Pennies | Prism Bar | Rekroom | Solar Café | Texas Lounge | The Backlot | the Roost | The Verge | Twisted Element | Woody’s |
