As You Are Bar

Oddly Enough, “a queer space for all,” opened on April 1 in Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy neighborhood.

“All the rumors are true,” owners Pike and McDaniel wrote in a Facebook message posted this week. “We are open. Y’all come through!”

As You Are Bar will welcome “anyone of any walk of life that will support, love, and celebrate the mission of queer culture,” the co-owners say.

“We put our love into this bar, and people feel it,” said owner Renauda Riddle.

“Show up to the bars,” Street says. It’s not enough to lament the loss of the lesbian bars of old; we have to support those that are still here, “to show up to the brick and mortar. It’s a form of activism.” 

“When I think about a safe space I’d like to be in as a patron, especially as a queer human, I want to be somewhere where I can be all of who I am and not think I have to hide a piece of that.”