DINING OUT

A New York Times journalist offers a history lesson on queer evolution through American eateries.

Piepenburg recalls being nurtured in the late 1990s by the belly-pleasing diner food and atmosphere as a regular at the Melrose Restaurant during his first journalism job in Chicago. He called it a gay restaurant “because gay people made it one” and that theme forms the core of his book chronicling and preserving the memory and the state of queer restaurants and their “shared language” across the country—both long gone and presently thriving. He draws inspiration and source material from interviews with chefs, wait staff, historians, entrepreneurs, patrons, and his own personal experiences as a “white-looking…half-Latino” gay man. The author first visits Annie’s Paramount Steak House, one of the country’s oldest family-owned gay restaurants, in Washington, D.C., where he’d first dined in 1993. He cites several instances of gay uprisings at restaurants prior to the pivotal event at the Stonewall Bar in 1969, as well as those in post-Stonewall America, including the Hamburger Mary’s franchise; Shamrock, a longtime “elevated dive” in Madison, Wisconsin; Slammers, an eatery in Columbus, Ohio; Bloodroot, a vegetarian restaurant and bookstore in Bridgeport, Connecticut, owned and operated by two lesbians; and the transgender-friendly Napalese Lounge and Grille in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Always affable, Piepenburg elaborates on the differences between the experience at a gay bar versus one at a gay restaurant, where sharing plates, quality eye-contact communication, and personal storytelling become part of the vibe. In writing about a variety of uplifting, community-supportive, safe-space queer establishments—from gossipy “high camp” gay brunch hot spots to “a table of loud-mouthed drag queens scarf[ing] down platters of grease-soaked bacon-and-cheese potato skins at two a.m.”—Piepenburg delivers an insightful and entertaining exploration of history-rich queer restaurants and their progressive impact on visibility and identity within a culture in constant flux.

A fond, appreciative, nostalgic nod to queer eateries across the country.