Historic Minneapolis gay bar in Loring Park reopens after fire

There was a frenetic hum of energy inside the 19 Bar in Loring Park ahead of its grand reopening Thursday.

The same staff from before the gay bar closed following a fire last March wiped down counters and readied a large pair of scissors for a rainbow ribbon-cutting. A manager counted down the minutes to opening.

Just before 3 p.m., the lights dimmed, someone yelled “Turn the music up!” and Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” blasted from the speakers.

When the doors opened, a crowd more suited to Friday night rather than Thursday afternoon streamed in and the ribbon was cut. Soon things started to look like they used to: bartenders slinging drinks, people waiting to draw cash out of ATMs, smokers gathering on the sunny patio.

“It’s been a long time coming,” owner Gary Hallberg said.

The 19 Bar, one of the first gay bars to open in Minneapolis and one of the oldest continuously operating establishments of its kind in the United States, closed after a telephone pole was knocked down by a garbage truck and struck a gas pipe, sending sparks through the entire bar and filling it with black smoke.

There were no injuries, but the entire bar had to be gutted for reconstruction.

Rich Anderson and Kevin Tomes were devastated when they heard about the fire. They met at the bar 27 years ago this month, locked eyes and shared a kiss. Anderson wrote Tomes’ phone number on a slip of brown paper the couple still has.

“I wrote my number on that little paper and gave it to him, and I didn’t have a clue who he was, but he was somebody I’d seen in here before,” Anderson recalled. “We’ve been together ever since, every day. We got legally married, two weeks after it was legal.”

Most of the bar’s fixtures — the support beams, rafters and half the floor — are brand new, along with an additional bathroom. But some decor familiar to regulars survived, like a renowned portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, the pool tables and a jukebox, said manager Eric Franson.

The bar’s uncertain future was hard on a community that knows a bar is more than just a bar.

Franson moved to Minneapolis 30 years ago, when the bar sold 3.2 beer and was half the size, and has been going there ever since. “I didn’t know people until coming here,” he said.

With the bar’s reopening, both the gay community and the Loring Park community at large again have a place to find out the latest news, Franson said. It’s where newcomers go looking for advice on local apartments, and where regulars often learn that an old friend has died.

With the bar closed over the last year, “We went into this dark hole where all the information just stopped,” similar to when COVID struck, said Franson, who’s fielded many questions and texts from patrons waiting for the bar’s return. “Now it’ll start up again and we’ll see a lot of old friends.”