The Flame

The Flame

The Flame

Location: 3780 Park Boulevard, San Diego, California, USA

Opened/Closed: 1984-2015

Yet another lost lesbian space we somehow missed from last year.

From San Diego Uptown News:

Park Boulevard nightclub The Flame is sold

Posted: October 9th, 2015

By Ken Williams | Editor

The Flame — a landmark lesbian bar that opened in 1984, and then changed hands 20 years later — was sold this week to a Hillcrest developer.

James Nicholas of Clownfish Partners, who bought the vacant property at 3780 Park Blvd. from seller Donny Duenas for $1.9 million, told San Diego Uptown News that he will be turning the single-story structure into a multi-use project by adding six apartments and a central courtyard.

Nicholas said he plans to “restore the façade” of the vintage building and keep the iconic sign. “It will stay on the building and get restored to its former glory,” he vowed.

Members of the LGBT community have been worried about saving buildings that have historical significance. Nicholas said The Flame building has never been designated as historical. “There is currently a study being done to see if it is, in fact, historic,” he said. “If it is designated as historic, I would love to have it acknowledged on the building.”

The “Hillcrest History Timeline” published on HillQuest’s website offers this tidbit about the old nightclub:
“1984 — The Flame, an old supper club on Park Blvd (named after a fire destroyed the first restaurant, The Garden of Allah), reopens as a lesbian bar. It changes ownership twenty years later, after being purchased by the owners of Numbers, a watering hole across the street. The Flame changed ownership again in 2010.”

The seller’s brokerage firm, Location Matters of Del Mar, stated in a news release that Duenas had operated The Flame since 2008. Mike Spilky of Location Matters handled the sale and Paul Ahern of Location Matters will oversee the leasing of the cocktail lounge.

The developer said the 6,098-square-foot lot is already zoned for multi-use, so the addition of six apartments won’t require rezoning. Nicholas explained where the apartments will be built in relationship to the existing building, which has 7,800 square feet and a basement.

“They will be within the existing structure above the new cocktail lounge that will be reduced in size to 2,000 square feet and behind the new cocktail lounge and will go up a total of three stories, two more than the ground floor,” Nicholas said.

Until a tenant is signed for the cocktail lounge, there is no telling whether the bar will remain LGBT oriented. The developer said he has no preference.

News of the sale of the vacant property quickly drew praise from several community leaders in Hillcrest.

“I am happy to hear that there is movement on this property. New residential is always a good thing in Hillcrest,” said Ben Nicholls, executive director of Hillcrest Business Association.

“I am enthusiastic to have the property continue as a nightlife and entertainment destination. I do hope that the new owners seek out a creative entertainment concept that fits with the new hip feel of Park Boulevard,” he said.

“The days of the Flame being a ‘hole in the wall’ are over. Whatever happens, I am confident that the iconic signage and LGBT cultural influence will feature prominently at that location.”

Luke Terpstra, chair of the Hillcrest Town Council, welcomed the property’s sale.

“This part of Hillcrest has really been improving over the last couple of years and this is good news when a business can reopen and breathe neighborhood life again,” Terpstra said. “It does not need to be a gay business, just a successful business that serves the community at large.”

This stretch of Park Boulevard, south of University Avenue, is part of the city’s Egyptian Quarter. The Flame, however, does not reflect that style of architecture. But the area is seeing a mini building boom with the construction of the Mr. Robinson loft building at the corner of Park Boulevard and Robinson Avenue. Executive chef Brad Wise will be opening TRUST restaurant in the new building.

—Ken Williams is editor of Uptown News and Mission Valley News and can be reached at ken@sdcnn.com or at 619-961-1952. Follow him on Twitter at @KenSanDiego, Instagram at @KenSD or Facebook at KenWilliamsSanDiego.

Wing Cafe

Golden Hill neighborhood, San Diego

Wing Café

Location: B Street, San Diego, California, USA

Opened: 1979

Closed: December 18, 1992

I first learned of the Wing Café on the Hillcrest History Timeline under 1979:

The Wing Cafe, a feminist restaurant-gallery-performance space on B Street in Golden Hill, opens. In 1982 Kathy Najimy and Sue Palmer take over the entertainment.

It's also listed on the Lambda Archives timeline for San Diego.

You can find more about Kathy Najimy--with a brief reference to the Wing Café--here.

Kathy Najimy in Sister Act (1992)

Karla Kirkwood also mentions doing stand-up comedy and a solo show at the Wing Café from 1980 to 1982.

This richer description of the Wing Café is taken from a memorial tribute to San Diego lesbian feminist Sara Louise Thompson (1953-2007).




A popular hangout for lesbians and feminists in San Diego at the time was the Wing Café, located on B Street in Golden Hills. It was a women-only, feminist café, offering theater performances, and giving women the opportunity to display their art, paintings, and quilts, among other things. Karen Konecky was one of five partners in the café and managed it full-time from 1979 to 1982. The café was a popular nexus for many women and women performers, a place where women could be comfortable and could discuss politics and listen to the music of piano player Sue Palmer. As Joan Capra recalls the café became a place where she and Sarah spent their free time. Karen remembers Whoopi Goldberg, a resident of San Diego around 1980 , who performed with a male companion. The women of the Wing Café told Whoopi that they welcomed only women, which inspired Whoopi to create a one-woman show for the café. This one-woman show eventually went to off-Broadway, and it later earned Whoopi a role in The Color Purple.  As Karen Kockecky remembers, "[T]his is a proud memory for the partners of the Wing Café" (Telephone Interview 2).

The Lambda Archives reports that the Wing Café closed in 1982:

The Wing Café closes December 18. The café opened 2 ½ years ago. Its Friday evening women’s open showcase provided opportunity for many women to test their talents. The Wing was the only local coffeehouse to bring a consistently high level of out-of-town women’s entertainment.

Obviously the 2 1/2 years ago is an editing error.

Las Hermanas (the Sisters)



4003 Wabash Avenue today

Las Hermanas (the Sisters)
Location: 4003 Wabash Avenue, San Diego, California, USA

Opened: December 1974

Closed: Early 1980

This is a great piece from Gay San Diego:

Coffeehouse coincided with women’s music movement
By Pat Sherman l GSD Editor

On or around Christmas Day in 1974, The Las Hermanas Women’s Cultural Center and Coffeehouse opened its doors, offering a safe and welcoming space where women—particularly lesbians—could unwind, enjoy homemade food, hear live music amd poetry and engage in spirited discussion.

What seemed like an impossible dream at the time would soon become an epicenter of feminist culture and a hub for the evolving women’s (or womyn’s) music scene of the 1970s.

At its peak from 1975 to 1978, women packed the modest, one-room space at 4003 Wabash Ave. for performances by Meg Christian, Holly Near, Joan Armatrading or Malvina Reynolds, best known for her 1962 folk anthem, “Little Boxes” (theme song to the cable TV series “Weeds”).

“That place was hot!” recalled June Millington, guitarist and former front woman of the 1970s rock band Fanny, whose devotees included David Bowie and Barbra Streisand. Millington recalled playing Las Hermanas five or six times after her departure from Fanny in the mid- 1970s.

“You just had so much fun playing there,” said Millington, who today resides in Massachusetts with longtime partner, Ann Hackler, where they run a nonprofit that supports women and girls in music. “I couldn’t wait to go back and play every single time.

“The thing is, for people who didn’t experience that very first year or two of women’s music—’76, ’77, maybe into ’78—it was such an explosion of pure, flat-out joy. You almost felt like, holy shit, I can’t believe it’s happening while I’m here.

“In Fanny, I was the tip of the spear. I was objectified sexually. I was unapproachable. At Las Hermanas, there you were. It was like 50 or 60 people having a great time, whom I was interested in talking to.”

Long before she began backing local blues performer Candye Kane and emerged as San Diego’s “Queen of Boogie Woogie,” San Diego pianist Sue Palmer was among the performers who cut their teeth playing at Las Hermanas.

“It was really formative,” recalled Palmer, who sometimes played Las Hermanas in a trio with Molly Stone and Dana White. “I had started playing all through the ’70s because of these women’s movement get-togethers and benefits. They wanted women to play music, so they were really encouraging me, even though I didn’t have much of a repertoire. I was learning my craft and practicing in front of a very forgiving audience.”

Though Palmer leaned more toward jazz than the folksy women’s acoustic tunes of the day, she found the atmosphere at Las Hermanas empowering.

“It was just so cool because they were celebrating women and how wonderful we are and, you know, women’s love for each other,” she said. “I hadn’t been out very long, so it was a real thrill.”

The nonprofit coffeehouse was brainchild of a group of mostly Latina women, including literature professor Dolores Valenzuela (a.k.a. “Mal Flora”), Carlota Hernandez and Teresa Oyos. Las Hermanas began as a
seven-room collective house for women who were seeking refuge from abusive spouses.

According to a taped interview with Hernandez housed at the Lambda Archives of San Diego, part of the seed money to open Las Hermanas was obtained by transporting marijuana (mota) across U.S.-Mexico border.

Oyos, who was just coming out in 1974, recalled discussions with the co-founders of Las Hermanas (one of them her first lover)—and how they pulled her onboard with their enthusiasm.

“Coming from the social justice movement and the Chicano movement where guys were more in charge, I wasn’t used to seeing women do these types of things,” Oyos said. “To see women in charge was really amazing.”

The idea was to create a safe space where lesbians could gather for cultural events, music, movies and a cheap, healthy bite to eat.

Las Hermanas was intended as a conscious alternative to the dark, smoky bars where women met during the ’70s, such as The Club (today the Casbah), The Apartment, Diablos and, later, Wings Café (where actress Kathy Najimy got her start).

Also, unlike the bars, Las Hermanas had a fairly strict women-only policy in place, that was even said to have precluded women from bringing their teenage sons once they had reached a certain age.

San Diego attorney Pam Wilson, who belonged to the Las Hermanas collective for several years, said Las Hermanas was formed as a nonprofit with a membership structure as a way to legally avoid admitting men.

“Under a membership structure you’re allowed to restrict the members and that’s how they were legally going to be able to have it be women-only,” she said.

Lambda Archives volunteer Diane F. Germain discovered Las Hermanas after moving to San Diego from Las Angeles in 1976. She recalled her own coming out process as being in “fits and starts.” Fresh out of graduate school and studying photography at the time, Germain’s subjects slowly began to gravitate toward the Pride festival and a women-only dance group. Germain realized that if she wanted to photograph the contra-dance group, she’d have to join in and, from there, “one thing led to another.”

After a few visits to Las Hermanas for $2 Sunday brunch, Germain began volunteering as a ticket taker at the door.

Germain said the experience of volunteering at Las Hermanas gave many women valuable work skills that they carried into their professional careers.

“It’s kind of hard to imagine now, but women weren’t even carpenters,” she said. “Women needed to know how to do lighting, and they needed to know how to do sound and put on a performance,” she said. “Sometimes we’d put on a concert and we couldn’t find a woman to do the lighting, so we’d hire a guy and we would say, ‘We’ll pay you to do the lighting, but you have to have two women there and teach them while you’re doing it.’”

During concerts, Las Hermanas was often so packed there would be women sitting on the floor or in each other’s laps. Many romances were kindled over tea, eggplant Parmesan or the “Amazon Special,” which consisted of pita bread with cheese, vegetables and a smoothie.

Germain recalled a cowgirl passing through from Tucson with her guitar, who sang and shared a harrowing story of ignorance and escape.

“When her parents found out she was gay they put her in an insane asylum,” Germain recalled. “She had to eventually work her way out of there by tricking the people and playing along.”

On Tuesdays, Las Hermanas served as a meeting space for young lesbians.

Longtime San Diego activist Wendy Sue Biegeleisen recalled visiting Las Hermanas once as a teenager, where she said she found a mix of younger and older women, from bikers and blue collar lesbians to college students from San Diego State’s burgeoning Women’s Studies Department.

“I felt comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time—cause, wow, there were so many women there,” Biegeleisen said.

Coyote Moon, who adopted her name during Las Hermanas’ heyday (“Hey, it was the ’70s,” she quipped), worked there as part of a work-study course at San Diego City College, cleaning up and making the popular “Joy Balls” from cashew butter, nuts and raisins.

Though it was created as an alcohol-free venue, she recalled taking a few swigs of Black Velvet whiskey before going on stage with her band, Amazon Spice.

“That was fun for me,” she said with a laugh. “We were pretty awful.”

Pam Wilson learned about Las Hermanas as an undergraduate student at University of California, San Diego when a group of women from Las Hermanas visited the campus to lead a talk about lesbianism.

Wilson remembers the space as a refuge from a storm of homophobia, which at the time included Anita Bryant’s crusade against gay teachers. It was a place where “everyone was accepting and the women were accomplished,” she recalled.

“It (provided) good role models for the younger women,” Wilson said. “I was in my 20s and I felt like I learned a lot about the process of working in groups and getting things accomplished— you know, meetings and how decisions are reached. It was pretty much a consensus thing.”

“I distinctly remember someone saying, ‘This place saved my life,’” Wilson added.

Eventually, the venue’s popularity led to internal strife.

“It was mostly working class Latina women that (formed Las Hermanas),” Germain said. “Then, as it started to take off and get bigger and more famous, there was kind of a set of middle class women that came along and wanted to make it better, but their idea of making it better made working class women feel not so good.
“There always was an argument about having men,” she said. “Middle class women had allies and friends that were men, and wanted them to come around, and a lot of the women who began it liked it the way it was."

Conflict, lack of interest and an increase in rent finally led to Las Hermanas’ closure in early 1980. An article in the Feb. 1980 edition of Thursday’s Child by Karen Merry summed up the venue’s demise this way: “Things have changed over the past five years,” Merry wrote. “Many new groups have formed, providing women with many choices for involving themselves politically, socially and culturally. Las Hermanas slowly and somewhat painfully declined in popularity and the nucleus of women nurturing it over the years have become exhausted.”

Since Las Hermanas’ closure, the space at 4003 Wabash Ave., on the cusp of North Park and City Heights, has served as a barber shop among other things. It is currently vacant and available for rent.

The Boy Mechanic Project/LA

The Boy Mechanic Project/LA












You absolutely must check out this website. Artist Kaucyliya Brooks has created this amazing interactive project on lesbian bars in Los Angeles and elsewhere. Here is part of the project description:

The Boy Mechanic is an ongoing project that will document the history of lesbian bars in cities and towns across the United States and Europe. Loss of architecture and the frailties of public memories have often been the motivation for photographic documentation of changing urban spaces; focusing on the lesbian bar reveals how sexuality and sexual identity inform larger narratives about public identity and social space. It is my hope that the photographs, video, and maps of The Boy Mechanic will document and give authority to narrations of lesbian bar life, so often anonymous or mute, and now waning. I began the research in 1996 in San Diego and completed "The Boy Mechanic/San Diego" in 2004, "The Boy Mechanic/Cologne" (Germany) in 2006 and I began working on Los Angeles in 2005. Each city's character influences both the direction and methodology of the research and the type of art objects that I produce and how they are exhibited and distributed. The Boy Mechanic/Los Angeles website is a means for disseminating the material gathered quickly and to a wider audience than the time and space boundaries of an exhibition context and it will also function as a research tool for networking with those who can contribute their knowledge to the writing of this anecdotal history.