Are Queer Soup Nights the New Gay Bars?
A Conscious Community Antidote to Donald Trump’s Omnipresence
In dreary January 2017, the month of former President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Queer Soup Night (QSN) served its first hearty bowl of soup in a backyard in Brooklyn.
Within months it had mushroomed into an epicentre of solace, connection, direct action and nutrition for the local queer community — who were otherwise doom-scrolling at the state of their disjointed nation.
Seven years down the line, as Trump looms like a spectre over the United States once again, there are now Queer Soup chapters peppered all over North America, from St Louis to Oakland, Toronto to Miami.
Every month, thousands of queers gather around the dinner table to dine on delicious bowls of home-grown comfort food, prepared by talented local chefs — and it’s a whole vibe.
“It’s a real party with DJs and music, people look cute, they take dates, exchange numbers… have a drink or two,” says Liz Alpern, the Brooklyn-based chef who founded Queer Soup Night.
The events involve all the things one might usually do at a queer club, “just in a slightly friendlier environment,” says Alpern, which creates “deeper queer community connection.”
