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A new bar opening later this month in Halifax is the latest addition to the city’s roster of queer bars, which has seen a recent resurgence after a pandemic-era lull.
Michael Gouthro says he hopes Backlot HFX, his new two-storey locale at 2103 Gottingen St., will offer something for everyone. Previously the home of Driftwood Coastal Diner and, before that, Hopyard Beer Bar, the location’s downstairs space was also a gay bar called Club NRG around 25 years ago, Gouthro said.
“Gottingen Street itself has a lot of queer history,” he said. “You had Club NRG, you had The Eagle, Toolbox, Menz & Mollyz, The Company House, Vortex, The Blue Moon.”
Among those venues, Menz & Mollyz was the last bar standing, keeping its doors open until April 2020. Around the same time, Reflections Cabaret on Salter Street shut its doors for good.
Backlot will be the third designated queer establishment to open in the city in recent years after Rumours Lounge & Cabaret on Lower Water Street and Stardust Bar + Kitchen on Barrington Street both opened in 2024.
More performance venues
Fiona Kerr, executive director of Halifax Pride, says the city is teeming with queer performers and event producers who up until recently relied on non-queer community spaces.
“Given how big the queer community is here, we have a pretty disproportionately small number of queer spaces, honestly, compared to other large cities,” Kerr said.
She added that as the overall number of performance venues in Halifax declines, seeing the number of queer venues rise is a boon for the community.
Gouthro, who is leasing the Gottingen Street space, said he’ll focus first on getting people in the door for drinks, pool and dancing, but he plans to add drag shows and musical performances to Backlot’s list of offerings in the future.
Not quite a competition
Kelly Bingham, who oversees management and operations at Stardust, says that in theory queer bars will compete with each other as they attempt to attract the same portion of the market.
He said, however, that there’s sufficient demand in Halifax for queer spaces and events that one business’s success won’t necessarily take away from another’s.
“More business is just going to bring more people out and give more people a chance to find a place and what aligns with them,” he said.
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