Postby cowboyeagle05 » 24 Aug 2022 14:13
It's an old guard problem most of gay bar owners have owned them for decades and still believe we live in a world where a gay bar is a GAY BAR where only gay men will come and feel safe in droves. It's the delusion that gay men, and yes, I mean gay men, not gay women, cause that's a demographic that drinks differently, are still dedicated to their bars and not going to Bishop Arts, Deep Ellum, Uptown, Addison, Legacy, Applebees etc. Gay men no longer feel the threat of being out in other places on the level they used to. Gay bars used to rake in the profits over being the only safe space. Now they have to compete for those customers like every bar and restaurant does and straight bars enjoy gay money as much as straight money so they host drag shows, good music nights and pay DJ's and staff better in some cases. Most of the old guard is used to the idea that their customer is dedicated and isn't drawn away by other places cause they "aren't a gay bar." All my gay men friends have dinners, drinks and nights out everywhere in this city and you have to appeal to them, market to them, be aggressive about booking talent, DJs and good cocktails, specials and themed events etc. The gaybourhood in my opinion, lost site of the evolution of gay men in America and has seen declines due to a general lack of awareness that the internet happened and gay men don't need gay bars to get lucky, and they will have to compete for their customer like the DMN has to compete against CNN for eyes on their content. In this example, the gay bars became the newspapers trying to ignore the reality that they no longer had just one or two local papers they were competing against but now the entire world wide web for getting their news.
So you are left with straight people at the gay bars who watched Will and Grace and feel fine in a gay bar, and the bar flies who come every weekend but only leave the gay bars when they are out of town. That's not enough customers to keep these businesses afloat. They need reinvestment and marketing and active programming that's inclusive and more than just happy hour starts at 4 pm.
“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell”