Ginger's Bar

Overview

Opened by Sheila Frayne on St. Patrick's Day 2000, Ginger's is Brooklyn's oldest surviving lesbian bar, an Irish dive that outlasted the gentrification of 'Dyke Slope' and survived the pandemic on community fundraising, now a rare outer-borough anchor for queer women's nightlife.

Ginger's Bar opened at 363 Fifth Avenue on March 17, 2000, when Sheila Frayne, known to regulars as 'the original Ginger,' a nod to both her red hair and the British slang term for gay, took over a space long anchored in the neighborhood's queer social life. The address had housed Carrie Nation through the mid-to-late 1990s, an earlier gay and lesbian bar where writer Alexander Chee and others found refuge; when Carrie Nation closed, some of its patrons opened Excelsior a few blocks south, while Frayne transformed the space into a queer Irish dive with a brighter, more openly lesbian identity. The building itself had served as a neighborhood bar for roughly a century by the time Frayne signed the lease. The bar occupies a long front room with a classic dark-wood bar, an original orange-painted ceiling, sports trophies and protest posters sharing wall space with queer artwork and Irish and Pride flags, a pool table in back, and an enclosed ivy-covered backyard patio with string lights and seasonal heaters. The restrooms have been curated as impromptu museums of queer cultural ephemera. It is cash-only and unpretentious, a neighborhood bar that centers queer women and their communities rather than a destination nightclub. Programming since reopening has included Thursday karaoke hosted by Javi, drag king showcases, Dyke Drag and Dyke Mic nights, pool competitions, queer craft markets, food drives, NY Liberty watch parties, and DJ sets; outdoor DJ events during Pride 2026 were scaled back in response to neighbors' 311 noise complaints, illustrating the ongoing tension between queer celebration and residential gentrification. Ginger's sits at the intersection of two Park Slope stories: the 1980s and 1990s influx of lesbian households into what became known as 'Dyke Slope,' with its women's archives, martial arts centers, and softball leagues; and the subsequent wave of gentrification that displaced most of those institutions by the 2000s, leaving Ginger's as the last lesbian bar standing in the borough. The Lesbian Bar Project, a documentary fundraising initiative launched in October 2020 by filmmakers Elina Street and Erica Rose after a final pre-lockdown night at Ginger's, cited it as part of their origin story; the project's first campaign raised $170,000 for participating bars nationally. Ginger's own GoFundMe drew $24,000 during the 19-month pandemic closure (March 2020 to October 28, 2021), supplemented by landlord forbearance on back rent and pandemic relief funds. In late 2021 Frayne brought on hospitality professional Brendan Donohoe as co-owner to help relaunch operations; Donohoe subsequently opened Mary's Bar in Greenpoint (2023) as a sister venue, though it temporarily closed in November 2024. Ginger's celebrated its 25th anniversary across St. Patrick's Day weekend 2025 (March 14–16) with live Irish music, Irish dancing, and DJ sets by Candy Warhol, a queen and DJ from Cork, Ireland; Donohoe described the bar as 'a space where people can be themselves, nurture community, celebrate their identities, and build lasting connections.' It remains one of approximately four lesbian bars in New York City and one of roughly 34 in the United States.

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