Bourbon Pub celebrates 50 years
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Bourbon Pub and Parade is at the corner of Bourbon and St. Ann streets. Photo: Rebecca Todd for NewOrleans.com
As New Orleans turns out this weekend to celebrate Southern Decadence, another party is just getting underway at one of the French Quarter's central gay bars: Bourbon Pub and Parade is celebrating 50 years.
Why it matters: The Pub certainly isn't the only or the oldest gay bar in the Quarter, but it is the biggest, and sometimes size does matter.
What she says: "It's a big job," Bourbon Pub owner Sandy Sachs tells Axios New Orleans. "We're also not just gay. We have a lot of straight people, trans people. We've really sort of cultivated a great mix of people, which I think keeps feeding the crowd."
Flashback: Bourbon Pub has passed through the hands of three owners in its 50-year history, but it's been under Sachs' leadership for most of that time.
- Still, Sachs says, she was so close with the first two owners that "it's almost like it was passed down to family" when she took it over in 2010.
- Some employees, she says, have been around for three decades or more, just like Sachs, who was the first woman that original owner Jerry Menefee ever hired.
- "It was 1980 when I came out at Tulane," she says, "and I used to run in a gay athlete posse. Bourbon Pub was the first gay club I'd ever been to, and 30 years later, I end up owning it."
Friction point: For most of its history, Bourbon Pub was open 24 hours a day, which was both a massive challenge and a calling card. These days, it does have an actual closing time.
- That's because the pandemic changed things, Sachs says. Between concerns over crime and the long-running difficulty of staffing a shift that ran from before sunrise to midday, she decided it was time to call it quits.
- "After we reopened," she says, "I just kind of felt like nothing really good happens between 5 and 10am."
The intrigue: Though Bourbon Pub does have lesbian-focused events, New Orleans, like much of the U.S., lacks a lesbian bar. It wasn't always that way, Sachs says.
- "I worked in one in the 1980s," she recalls. New Orleans native "Ellen DeGeneres used to come in all the time with her then-girlfriend. What's happened is, I think lesbians tend not to go out as often as they used to. … It's just kind of sad."
Over the years, Sachs has collected quite a few stories.
- But the party she threw to celebrate taking over ownership stands out, she says.
- "It was fun to have all the old scene divas there who I'd worked with so much earlier on," she says.
Yes, but: "That's the clean story. I have kids now," she says.
If you go: Bourbon Pub has a handful of parties and VIP events for Southern Decadence, which runs through Sept. 1.
- Among the events is an appearance by Billy Porter on Sept. 1 for VIP pass holders. Details.