Lesbian Bars Aren't What They Used To Be... In A Good Way

Deb Gordon, who has helped run Slammers, a lesbian bar that opened in the '90s, reflects on what's changed and what still needs to change.

On Aug. 31, 1993, Marcia Riley opened Slammers, a lesbian bar and pizza joint in downtown Columbus, Ohio. At the time, it was one of four lesbian bars in the city. Unlike the others, Slammers is still standing despite a pandemic, a riot and the fact The Lesbian Bar Project states only 21 lesbian bars remain in the U.S. (fewer than 900 LGBTQ bars exist nationwide).

Deb Gordon, who doesn’t have a title (“I’m Marcia’s wingman,” she told HuffPost), has worked with Riley from the beginning and still works at Slammers, mainly in a supervisory role. Like Riley, she’s seen it all: the bar transitioning from mostly women customers to all demographics; the federal legalization of same-sex marriage; and now the advent of “Don’t Say Gay” laws, which Ohio Republicans are trying to pass in the state, and the recent Ohio ban of transgender students in sports. In non-pandemic years, Columbus hosts one of the largest Pride festivals in the Midwest — 700,000 people — and the city has the 15th highest LGBTQ population in the U.S. Slammers is not only the oldest gay bar in Ohio, but also the longest-owned women’s bar in Columbus. For this edition of Voices In Food, Gordon talked to Garin Pirnia about how the bar and times have evolved.