In an ode to the Lexington Club, “Uptown Homos” debuts tonight

Missing their old haunt, two devotees of the shuttered Lexington Club are putting on the first of what they hope will be a monthly queer night at the Uptown bar. Uptown Homos, “a dyke, lesbian, unicorn, trans queer night of flirtation,” takes place tonight, from 6 to 11 p.m.

Kelly Robbie Hansen and partner Tanya Wischerath worked with Uptown to put together the event which will feature $5 Jameson and tequila drink specials. Wischerath, a former Lexington Club bartender also known as “Hot Tanya,” will be helping out behind the bar.

Hansen, a long time regular at the Lex, said Uptown Homos was conceived in response to the loss the couple and their friends have felt since the bar closed in April. The last lesbian bar in the city, it was sold to the PlumpJack Group earlier this year.

Hansen said the closure of the Lex “felt like our home was being taken away.

“We all kept asking one another ‘where are we going to end up?’ ‘Where are you all going to hang out?’ No one had a concrete answer,” Hansen wrote in a message on Facebook. “The Lex closed end of April, and still no one knows where to go. It’s been sad to want to go out on any given night and not see your chosen family, or be surrounded by your people.”

Uptown, at 17th and Capp streets, was an obvious choice, Hansen said, noting its dive bar philosophy, cheap drinks and friendly neighborhood vibe.

“Uptown Homos is really a response to try and get queers together for a night, early, not a dance party scene; something far more mellow and sweet,” she wrote. “I keep saying ‘come to Uptown Homos and be with the people you love and want to be loved by.”

Hansen said her hope is that “people feel comfortable in the space.

“We will never have the Lexington Club back, but we can still try and create spaces where we can be ourselves and connect with our community,” she said.

[Art by Tanya Wischerath]