This story aired in the April 08, 2026 episode of Crosscurrents.
Late last year, the beloved Oakland queer bar Friends and Family announced the news that it was closing. Their community was so upset, devoted customers even threw the bar a funeral.
Their closure left many wondering why it seems so hard for the few bars that serve lesbian and queer people in the Bay Area to survive. It turns out, according to one queer sociologist, that there's actually a magic formula that queer bars need to succeed.
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Story transcript:
Sound of a car driving by.
REPORTER: I'm standing at the corner of Telegraph and 66th in Oakland, in front of what's known as the oldest operating gay bar in the country: the White Horse Inn. It's a windowless building with white paneling and blue trim. The bar officially opened in 1933, but it’s long-rumoured to have been a speakeasy before that. Patrons would sneak in through the adjacent Chinese restaurant.
PATTY NISHIMURA DINGLE: It was very secretive. People would come through there to get into here.
REPORTER: That’s Patty Nishimura Dingle, the White Horse’s owner. She says that before homosexuality was decriminalized, underground bars were one of the few places where folks could go to find lovers, friends, or just people like them — in relative safety. Hence the White Horse’s lack of windows.
Patty bought the White Horse in 2022.
NISHIMURA DINGLE: I am the first queer woman of color, sole owner of the White Horse, which I'm super proud about.
NISHIMURA DINGLE: In its early days, it operated as a bar for gay men, but patrons dating back to at least the ‘80s recall it being queer friendly — open to the wider community. This kind of integration is often rare for LQBTQ spaces. But Patty thinks that’s part of what makes the White Horse special.
NISHIMURA DINGLE: Who felt like this was a safe place over the years may have changed. You know, like maybe it started with gay men, lesbian women, and then like, transgender –– whatever it is, you’re protected here.
REPORTER: So, Patty makes sure that people of every gender, sexual orientation, and race have something for them at the White Horse. Take a look at their event line-up. It runs the gamut from Valkyries and Warriors watch parties, to Queer Karaoke, to a long-running drag king show, and dance parties of every persuasion.
Sound of doorperson selling tickets and checking IDs.
REPORTER: Tonight I’m here for the Ru Paul’s Drag Race watch party.
People are gathered around the bar’s many TVs to watch the show. It’s a packed house, and a diverse house. Not just racially, but in gender expression and sexual orientation.
Sound of drag queen emcees talking to the audience.
REPORTER: I step outside to talk with Kodie Rusca. She says that that diversity is what she loves about this place.
KODIE RUSCA: There's a variety of people here. It's not just one kind of person. There's all kinds of people here, and I really like that.
REPORTER: Another regular, Sis Nau T agrees.
SIS NAU T: Yeah. Everybody gets to shine at the White horse.
REPORTER: It turns out that what makes the White Horse special — its diversity, its history of inclusion, and its affordability — is sort of the magic formula that queer bars need to succeed as businesses.
That’s according to Greggor Mattson, a professor of sociology at Oberlin College.
GREGGOR MATTSON: I lived in Oakland for nine years and I learned to flirt at the White Horse.
REPORTER: Greggor is the author of the book, Who Needs Gay Bars?
MATTSON: When I was researching the book, I drove all over the country, 39 states…
REPORTER: … studying what these bars need to survive. And he visited and counted the bars that specifically served gay men and those that specifically served lesbian women, as well as those that identified as queer — like the White Horse—open to the whole LGBTQ alphabet.
And what Greggor found is that, here in the broader Bay Area, there currently are about thirty bars that cater to gay men, but only five that cater to lesbians, or to queer people more generally.
Polls show that, nationally, there aren’t that many more gay men than lesbians and queer-identified folks. So why do they have so many more bars? Well, it’s complicated, starting with identity.
MATTSON: The lesbian community in the ‘90s had to reckon with the fact that there were trans people who wanted to come to the bars, that there were trans lesbians, that trans men were part of the lesbian community…
REPORTER: More people began identifying as “queer” rather than gay or lesbian because it’s a gender-expansive term that can encompass both trans and nonbinary people. So many lesbian bars broadened into queer bars to welcome people of those identities, too. And the ones that didn’t?
MATTSON: Those bars didn't last. And so to some degree, I think the inclusivity of lesbian bars is a product of survival, but I think it's also where the community has gone.
REPORTER: Meaning, they did it for community and financial reasons. Because, simply put, lesbians, non-binary, and trans people make less money. That’s another reason there’s fewer lesbian and queer bars than gay bars.
MATTSON: If you have a business, if the population you are trying to serve and target has less money on average, then there is less money for you to earn.
REPORTER: The problem though, Greggor says, is that many of their queer customers don’t really think about how these bars are businesses. He says that studies show that queer customers want their bars to be politically and ethically minded — like, they care where they source their supplies, who they work with, and who works for them. Which can be hard for these bars, who ultimately have to think about their financial bottom line.
MATTSON: At the end of the day, lesbian bars and queer bars are small businesses. They're not community organizations.
REPORTER: So how does a queer bar survive? That’s where Greggor’s formula comes in. He says that bars need to: cater to different audiences…
MATTSON: Nights that play reggae tone or that play hip hop or slow jams…Nonbinary dance night... Lesbian bingo, lesbian drag shows, lesbian… you know it’s gotta have events.
Have good ethics…
MATTSON: Politics has to be the backbone.
REPORTER: And provide affordable options.
MATTSON: Having a $2 beer is another way that you invite in the breadth and the depth of the community.
REPORTER: I take this formula to Patty, the owner of the White Horse.
NISHIMURA DINGLE: Okay, so I disagree with the $2 beer… (Laughs)
REPORTER: She says maybe in the Midwest bars can afford two dollar beers, but it’s hard to keep a place open with those prices in the Bay Area. That said, Patty makes sure that the White Horse has affordable options, like agenerous happy hour; events that cater to a diversity of genders, sexualities, and races; and that purchasing and hiring decisions reflect the bar’s politics.
For the most part, it seems like Greggor’s formula has been working at the White Horse for nearly a century.
Sound of cocktails being mixed among chatter at the bar.
REPORTER: Over in downtown Oakland — another queer bar, Friends and Family — dared to challenge Greggor’s formula with a different vision of what a queer bar could be.
Sound of bartender taking an order: “Here we go…that will be the Angel Face and the St Julien, and we’re doing the cabbage salad and the petite aioli…”
REPORTER: When I visit Friends and Family on a Friday night in February, the tables are full of customers. Unlike the White Horse, there are servers taking orders for the bar’s elevated cocktail and food menu. In 2024, their chef Gabby Maeda was a semi-finalist for a coveted James Beard award.
Sounds at the bar. People talking, drinks being made, champagne being popped.
REPORTER: Karl Helm has been a regular since the beginning.
KARL HELM: There are a lot of spaces for queers that are dive bars and clubs and this is like a totally different thing that doesn’t exist, really, elsewhere.
REPORTER: Remember sociologist Greggor Mattson’s formula for how queer bars can survive: they need to be open to a diverse community, have a political backbone, and have affordable options.
Well, Friends and Family doesn’t quite check all of those boxes. It is strong on politics. It is decidedly queer and open to a diverse community, including straight people. But, it serves nice food and cocktails … which are pricey. Or at least it used to.
BLAKE COLE: It made people confused, like straight people didn't know if they could come here.
REPORTER: This is owner Blake Cole.
COLE: And lots of queer people couldn't quite afford to come here. And we were confusing to people.
REPORTER: And, the bar opened at the beginning of the pandemic. Their overhead was high and the bills piled up. For years, Blake says she struggled to make it work. So, Friends and Family made the announcement that it would be closing in early 2026. The news came as a big loss to their community.
COLE: This time that we're in is so hard just to exist in the world that you add on operating a small business, you add on operating a small queer business on top of that, and it really feels almost impossible to survive every day.
REPORTER: Patty Nishimura Dingle, the White Horse’s owner, agrees. Even though the formula seems to be “working” at the White Horse, Patty says that it’s still really hard to survive as a queer business.
NISHIMURA DINGLE: Like, y'all have no idea what it takes, again, to run a bar.
REPORTER: But, just like Blake, she does it because she knows how important it is to have these spaces for all queer people.
NISHIMURA DINGLE: I wanna own a bar. I wanna create that experience for people. And we all know as part of the community, love is what really kind of connects all of us.
REPORTER: It’s the same drive for connection that led people to sneak through that Chinese restaurant into the White Horse’s windowless haven more than 90 years ago.
