West palm beach gay bars

H.G. Roosters, West Palm Beach’s iconic same-sex attracted bar, has reopened five years after being destroyed by a fire during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Longtime patrons and politicos crowded into the 80-year-old stone façade building on Belvedere Road on May 19 to hail the restoration of an integral piece of Palm Beach County’s history.

In honor of its reopening, the Historical Society of Palm Beach County will be hosting a presentation next month on the bar’s role in the county’s LGBTQ community.

In the meantime, here are five things to know about Roosters:

1. It boasts the title of Florida’s longest running gay bar

When H.G. Roosters opened in 1984, Palm Beach County was populated with several other gay bars, which served a key role as people centers at a time when homosexuality was less widely accepted. Now, as Roosters owner A.J. Wasson told The Palm Beach Upload in 2020, those original bars are gone. (Several newer gay bars function throughout the area).

"We're the longest-running male lover bar in the state of Florida, for 36 years,” he said. “There were (once) 19 other gay bars in Palm Beach C