Top Queer hot spots in Vancouver

Vancouver’s gay and drag culture goes beyond the nightclub scene and has established a rapport for the best hangouts and hot spots in the gay community. Here are some of the top hot spots we recommend that have made their mark in the city.

By Brittany Tiplady
[contributor]

Vancouver, as deemed by The Travel Editor magazine, is the San Francisco of the North.

The city has a lot to offer the gay community–from parades to cafés, to some of the city’s best nightclubs.

But Vancouver’s gay and drag culture goes beyond the nightclub scene and has established a rapport for the best hangouts and hot spots in the gay community.

The West End neighborhood has the highest concentration of gay residents in Canada, and as you wander streets like Davie or Denman, you won’t find a shortage of bars and stores that cater to everything from off beat to intellectual.

Here are some of the top hot spots we recommend that have made their mark in the city.

The Elbow Room
The Elbow Room offers service with a side of abuse. Have breakfast at this Davie street café, and get served with some sexual innuendo, and humorous abuse from the waiters.

The restaurant has been serving around-the-block lineups since its opening in 1983.

The restaurant seats 52 and has a “staff of 10-12, abusing customer’s from all over Canada, the US and the world. [They] are listed with the Japanese Tourist Board, the Actors Guild and dozens of other entertainment organizations in Hollywood. [They] still get [their] fair share of stars from TV, movies and stage,”as written on the Elbow Room website.

Little Sister’s Book and Art Emporium
Since 1983, Little Sister’s Book and Art Emporium has been serving Vancouver with the largest selection of gay, transgendered and bisexual material in Canada.
The store has over 2,000 books in stock and is equipped with many hard-to-find titles on their shelves.

Their mandate is to “struggle against censorship and [their] commitment to serve the GLBT community has helped make Little Sister’s a recognizable name around the world.”

Little Sister’s has battled the Supreme Court for years, regarding obscenity charges over importing some of its graphic material.

Lick Nightclub
Vancouver nightclub, Lick, caters to a number of lesbian patrons. Lick, which is next door to Honey, is a womens-only venue titled All-Girl-Operated Underground Queer Night Club. The nightclub has an excellent sound system and DJs play genres of music from hip-hop to indie, but don’t bother trying to find the club’s number, Lick is unlisted.

Celebrities Nightclub

Celebrities Nightclub is one of Vancouver’s hottest and most respected gay venues. The city’s drag queens host nightly events (with the exception of Tuesday, which is straight night), including bingo on Wednesdays followed by an exceptional drag performance.

Enjoy live shows put on by Vancouver’s queens including Vancouver’s Empress Raye Sunshine and her Imperial Princess Kiki LaWhore, and other Drag veterans.  Patrons at Celebrities get a mixed vibe of gay, straight and bisexual, all the while enjoying great music, visuals, lighting and of course the clubs performers.

If you want to be informed on gay and lesbian news, or find out about more hot spots in the city, check out Xtra!, the newsmagazine where queers conspire.