Friday nights at The Hub, a downtown Redwood City bar and entertainment venue, have felt like meeting a bunch of friends for drinks, said Dahlia Llama. That sense of belonging matters in a part of the Bay Area with few LGBTQ+ spaces. Llama is one of the four hosts of the weekly “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” viewing parties at the venue.
“The point of having this event here was to bridge the Queer community because there is so much going on in the North Bay, there’s a lot going on in South Bay, but the Peninsula gets forgotten,” Dahlia Llama said. “We’ve gotten a lot of regulars, a lot of familiar faces, which is really nice.”
Regulars echoed that feeling, speaking about how important it was to have spaces for the LGBTQ+ community throughout the Bay Area. That was the idea behind starting the viewing parties, which began when Karen Darling, one of the hosts, approached the owner, Allan Rodgers, during the last season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
“It’s not a Queer bar, but he’s super Queer friendly,” Karen Darling said. “When we had the idea of doing a ‘Drag Race’ viewing party, and we went to him with it, he was super receptive. … There’s not a lot of Queer events between San Francisco and San Jose, so finding a space to hold a Queer event when there’s not any Queer spaces was reassuring.”
“RuPaul’s Drag Race,” a reality television show in which drag queens compete in acting, design and lipsync challenges — to name a few — has been largely credited with bringing the performance style into the mainstream. The “All Stars” spin-off of the original series features returning queens competing for a spot in the Drag Race Hall of Fame among other prizes.
Drag has been an important fixture of LGBTQ+ culture and a tool to examine and critique the rigid ideas about gender expression through its exaggerated drag makeup and clothing, according to the Human Rights Campaign. In that vein, viewing parties for RuPaul’s shows are nothing new. Events like these, along with other drag-related programming, were vital in many cases for keeping gay bars afloat into the early 2000s and providing a consistent physical space for the community to gather and connect.
“It’s more important, in my estimation, in the non-Pride months to give Queer people a place to come and be social and talk to each other and be around like-minded individuals,” Karen Darling said. “Just to know that there’s more of them out there to get people off the apps and into a real-life situation, interacting with people, making friends (is key).”
For many, those connections have certainly grown out of attending The Hub’s viewing parties.
“In my 20s, I took (Queer spaces) for granted, and now I’m in my early 30s, and I’m seeing there are a lot of attacks on Queer spaces and trans rights. … I am seeing a sense of resistance and hate, and I’m not sure where it’s coming from,” said Shivam Parmar, a 32-year-old Burlingame resident. “But (it) is actually really nice that you can just come here, get roasted by a drag queen and there’s no extra pressure of sex, … you can just get to know someone, and that’s nice.”
As 8 p.m. approaches, many regulars and newcomers file into The Hub — gathering around the bar in groups of friends who did not know each other before coming to the viewing parties.
“People show up who gain friends out of it,” Karen Darling said. “They’re all strangers, and now we’re in a group chat. … They love each other. Good for them.”
Though not a gay bar, The Hub, which hosts events from karaoke nights to burlesque shows, has expanded its LGBTQ+ programming, helping meet the demand for such gathering spaces on the Peninsula.
“I come from a time where there was no iPhone, and there wasn’t so much online community, and you had to go to gay bars, and you had to go to community groups to seek out community,” said Menlo Park resident Shane Cisneros. “There’s absolutely no replacement for it. There’s no replacement for the energy in the room.”
The show’s season finale will air on July 17, marking the final night of The Hub’s viewing party for this season.
