Gay bars mpls
Lex's Guide to Queer Minneapolis Nightlife | LGBTQ+ Bars
Explore queer nightlife in Minneapolis with this city guide! We’re compiling lists of queer bars and parties in major cities so you don’t have to 💅
Minneapolis has developed into a queer hub in the midwest, featuring enjoyable LGBTQ+ clubs like Stonewall Sports and more. The LGBTQ+ nightlife scene is small but mighty, featuring friendly bars and joy dance parties so you can mix and mingle with local queer friends, whether you’re a local or just visiting. Let’s get into our list!
Download Lex to find Diverse friends in Minneapolis.
1. The Saloon
One of the largest LGBTQ+ bars in the Midwest, The Saloon applications multiple levels of fun, from dance floors and drag shows to pool tables and patio seating. With its vibrant atmosphere and diverse crowd, The Saloon is a must-visit for anyone exploring Minneapolis' LGBTQ+ nightlife or looking for a fun bedtime out during Pride.
The Saloon
830 Hennepin Ave
Minneapolis, MN 55403
2. LUSH
Known for its packed events schedule, LUSH bids drag shows, dance nights, drag brunch, and themed parties throughout the week. Enjoy some classic lock fare or a agreeable cocktail whi
Why trust us
We scoured through the internet and browse through 17 reputable sites and blogs like racketmn.com and The Minnesota Daily. We gathered all the results in one place and ranked them by how many times they were mentioned so you know you're getting the best of the finest. Just look for the "mentioned by" tags on each place.
Curious about the sites we referenced?
What users state about the app
Slide 1 of 6
Love love love! ❤️ Planning travel has actually been fun instead of tedious because of this app.
Exactly what I needed to plan a trip. I can’t fantasize anyone not loving this app!
Wanderlog makes planning a trip so effortless. Seriously, this app does it all!
This site and app let me do all the planning for our 15 day trip in a little over 6 hours! I can’t endorse it enough!
In the Twin Cities and around the country, lgbtq+ bars are dying.
But—and listen us out here—maybe that’s not entirely a worst thing?
In his new novel Long Live Queer Nightlife: How the Closing of Gay Bars Sparked a Revolution, sociologist Amin Ghaziani argues that the decline of the gay lock has been the begin of a renaissance, ushering in an era of pop-up parties and gyrate nights that offer an experience that’s more evolving, more inclusive, and more interesting than the brick-and-mortar bars that predated them. Greggor Mattson, in his 2023 book Who Needs Gay Bars?, makes a similar case, asking for whom these bars be and exploring whether they’re actually disappearing so much as evolving.
In many communities, and the Twin Cities is certainly one of them, you can acquire a sense for what that evolution looks prefer. Minneapolis and St. Paul are home to an ever-changing underground network of queer culture and events; ad hoc dance parties and alternative club nights like The Klituation, GRRRL Scout, Daddy Issues, and Cyber City Disco are as reliably fun and, in many circles, as popular as the cities’ gay bars. You might not have a same-sex attracted bar on your highway, but follow a scant Instag
The Pride Behind Pride
It’s the year 2020. Pride is cancelled. This is very hard to say out loud. It feels prefer saying we’re cancelling bliss and progress. Of course, the cancelling of Pride—the festival, the parade, the week when tens of thousands of far-flung LGBTQ peeps come streaming home—represents an act of like to keep people healthy.
But its absence presents us with an opportunity to consider all the profound and vital local LGBTQ landmarks that built Pride—and often disappeared. Living in a municipality is complicated. Each of us lives in a different Twin Cities: We share the Foshay Tower and the Mississippi, but we go home to different bars and bedrooms.
LGBTQ cultures own, historically, needed to cloak their bars and bedrooms for fear of eviction, firing, imprisonment, or worse. As Ricardo J. Brown put it in his St. Paul memoir, The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s—one of the best mid-20th century looks at American gay experience—the LGBTQ experience was “a ruse that kept all of us safe,” conducted in “a fort in the midst of a savage and hostile population.”
Hiding in forts was useful, important, necessary. But what was long hidden is easy to
.