Coming soon to an eatery near you — guerrilla gays
I must admit, going to the same restaurants and frequenting the same bars every weekend gets tiring after a while. There are only so many options to try on a menu and so many songs to sing with your friends by a piano.
We all have routines that we find safe and comfortable. But, as the famous saying goes, variety is the spice of life — and unless you want to eat bland food forever, changing both your scene and scenery is necessary every now and then.
Until recently, there haven’t been many choices for our community when it came to friendly places for wining and dining, and even fewer to truly call our own. When there’s only one gay restaurant in town, avoiding a routine is close to impossible.
Understandably, most of us feel comfortable in GLBT restaurants and bars, mingling with people who understand what we’re all about. I certainly feel happier to be around people like me at night, especially when we have to deal with the straight majority day to day.
In Philadelphia, we’ve got our own neighborhood full of bars and restaurants to enjoy. But, compared to the entire city, we only have a sliver of what’s out there. When the current crop of choices grows tired, the only other option is to head back with the breeders, leaving our creature comforts at 12th and Spruce behind.
Wouldn’t it be grand, though, if we could transplant our friends and fellow winers and diners from the gay restaurants into new places, waging a friendly takeover of the so-called “straight” digs?
It would be grand, and in many cities across the country, it is.
Akin to the classic Manhattan flash mob — which congregates in public places to participate in all sorts of unique behaviors — the gay community has its own widely popular group called the Guerrilla Gay Bar.
The GGB unites GLBT people in taking over a typically straight bar or restaurant for one night of alternative revelry. Recently, the Los Angeles version, found at www.guerrillagaybar.com, has garnered a great deal of publicity.
Every month, those who sign up at the Web site are given the details on the next new place to fall under the guerrillas’ graces. In L.A., the e-mails arrive the day before the event, so as not to alert the management of a given locale. However, since the mob brings an incredible amount of business with it, any sane manager would be silly to refuse.
The site also lists links to similar groups in cities all across the country, including Washington, D.C., Seattle and our very own city that loves us back. (It’s nice to know we’re keeping up to speed with the rest of our metropolitan counterparts.) The Philly version has been in business since last September, with 60 regular members.
The initial shock people may have when subjected to the antics of the GGB usually subsides into a good, festive time. By eating and conversing together in atypical places, the mob exposes people to our community, showing we’re more than just a bunch of walking and talking stereotypes and promoting the interaction of straight, gay and in between.
Even if you can’t organize as many people as a Guerrilla Gay Bar outing, it still pays to take a few friends, venture out of your element and try someplace new for dinner and drinks. You’ll have a whole new lot of spectators to impress, new surroundings to impress your brain and, hopefully, a new place to add to your comfortable yet expanding routine.