Cafe Lafitte in Exile

Cafe Lafitte in Exile on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, opened in 1953, claims to be the oldest gay bar in the United States.

Cafe Lafitte in Exile is a bar in New Orleans' French Quarter that has operated continuously since 1933. It claims to be the oldest continuously operating gay bar in the United States.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

Name

Originally, the bar was opened in a famous old building at 941 Bourbon Street known as Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop. When the owner of the business, Tom Caplinger, was forced to relocate, he named the new bar Cafe Lafitte in Exile.

History

The bar is open 24 hours a day and has hosted such luminaries as Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote. Operating since the end of Prohibition (albeit in two different locations) the bar claims to be the oldest gay bar in operation in the United States.^[6] The original Cafe Lafitte in Exile opened in the building that had been the noted pirate Jean Lafitte's blacksmith business in the 18th century. This building is now called Lafitte's Blacksmith shop. In its early days, the bar was managed by Mary Collins, a lesbian, and drew a mixed crowd of lesbians, homosexuals and heterosexuals. In the 1950's, during rising tension between the club and the landlord, manager Tom Caplinger moved the club to the building it is now in. At the grand reopening party in 1953, patrons arrived costumed as their favorite 'exile', including people like Oscar Wilde, Dante, and Napoleon.^[7]

In 1954, author John Steinbeck wrote an article about Tom Caplinger and Cafe Lafitte for the Saturday Evening Post, describing Caplinger as "an uninhibited, unkempt scholar, whose laissez-faire policy of running a gin mill can only be termed unique."^[8]

Ghost Stories

In the book "Queer Hauntings," Ken Summers writes that bar patrons claim to have occasionally seen the ghosts of Cafe Lafitte's departed luminaries inside the bar, as well as a 'frisky' ghost named Mr. Bubbly who pinches people on their rear ends.^[9]

Further Reading

Frank Perez, Jeffrey Palmquist, In Exile: The History and Lore Surrounding New Orleans Gay Culture and Its Oldest Gay Bar, LL Publications, 2012

References