Dining Out: First Dates, Defiant Nights, and Last Call Disco Fries at America’s Gay Restaurants

From a New York Times journalist, a culinary tour of gay restaurants--their history, and how they evolved as a space of safety and celebration for the LGBTQ+ community--full of joy, sex, sorrow, activism, and nostalgia.

Dining Out explores how gay people came of age, came out, and fought for their rights not just in gay bars or the streets, but in restaurants. From cruisy urban cafeterias of the 1920s to mom-and-pop diners that fed the Stonewall generation to the intersectional hotspots of the early 21st century. Using archival material, original reporting and interviews, and first-person accounts, Erik Piepenburg explores how LGBTQ restaurants shaped and continue to shape generations of gay Americans.

Through the eyes of a reporter and the stomach of a hungry gay man, Dining Out examines the rise, impact and legacies of the nation’s gay restaurants past, present, and future, connecting meals with memories. Hamburger Mary’s, Florent, a suburban Denny’s queered by kids: Piepenburg explores how these and many other gay restaurants, coffee shops, diners, and unconventional eateries have charted queer placemaking and changed the modern LGBTQ civil rights movement for the better.

Erik Piepenburg has been writing for The New York Times for almost 20 years, covering mostly LGBTQ+ issues, film and television but also food and travel, and writes a monthly column for The Times about one of his guilty pleasures: horror movies. Originally and proudly from Cleveland, he lives with his partner in New York City.