The Central Coast Queer Archive Project is co-hosting an event on May 12 ahead of Pride Month. They describe it as a “re-queering” of a San Luis Obispo business which used to be one of the few gay bars in the city’s history.
Journey’s Inn was likely the first public queer bar in San Luis Obispo. Its heyday was in the 1980’s, but it’s gone through a lot of changes since then. It’s now the Jewel of India restaurant on Broad Street.
Journey’s Inn was one of the few gay bars in SLO’s history, and there are none in the city right now.
David Weisman is the Project Director for the Central Coast Queer Archive Project, which is holding a reunion dinner there on May 12th. He said it’s meant to reunite people who used to hang out there and to let them share their experiences with the younger generation of queer people.
“San Luis [Obispo] isn’t New York City, we don’t have a historic Stonewall Tavern, we don’t have a Castro District like San Francisco or a West Hollywood. What we have are these occasional buildings that were those places, closeted or hidden from the public," Weisman said.
Rowan Waters with the Queer Archive Project said revisiting these historic spaces is a powerful experience.
“I love the part where you walk inside and you can imagine how it might have looked at the time, with all the queer people dancing and drinking and having a good time there," Water said. "And I love having people who were there at the time who can point out, ‘Okay, that’s where the DJ booth was, and this is where this was.’ That’s really part of the fun for me, is bringing the past into the present.”
The dinner is at Jewel of India on Friday, May 12 at 7p.m. The Gala Pride and Diversity Center will also hold an educational Zoom forum before the event from 5-6p.m.
More information is at SloQueerArchive.org.
