Open Café Closed: The Marais One Year Later

Last year, one of our favorite gay bars in the Marais district, Open Café, closed. There wasn’t much fanfare because, as locals know, the Marais has gotten too expensive for its own good, and many local businesses rooted there since it began to gentrify could no longer pay the rent.

But one year later, the bar’s facade still sits empty at the very well-trafficked corner of rue des Archives and rue Sainte-Croix de la Bretonnerie. It’s covered with graffiti in a neighborhood that has otherwise scrubbed up nicely since dicier days a few decades back. Only in 1978 did the first gay bar open in the Marais, spawning others that are still hanging on for life today.

In 2022, Open Café was a big casualty. Even Le Dépòt, the city’s infamous back room bar, has struggled to reopen its doors, despite what its website says. The Gym Louvre and now the sex shop RoB have also closed, according to the French gay publication Têtu. Who’s next? Will the city’s gayborhood fully melt away into oblivion?

Open café one year later, its facade still empty…

While it seems that way, it’s not as bleak as all that. While some bars closed, the Marais is celebrating the reopening of the iconic dance bar, Tango. It’s a staple, emblematic of the welcoming and friendly environment that many LGBTQ+ locals and visitors flocked to the Marais to find. Elles Bar, in the heart of the Marais, opened just two years ago, giving new life to Paris’s lesbian scene. A host of other bars like Quetzal, FreeDJ, Le Cud, and Raidd seem to be going strong, as well.

Maybe we’ve reached an equilibrium where LGBTQ+ spaces have stabilized. Maybe no more will close and maybe a few new ones will crop up soon. Who knows? What is important is that we all acknowledge the importance of these spaces for LGTBQ+ locals and travelers who look to Paris as a beacon of hope and possibility.

It’s a city where they seem themselves reflected in its very fabric. France has no other truly visible gay neighborhood. The Marais in Paris is it. We can’t afford to lose it and risk becoming invisible

waiting for le depot to reopen?

Politicians in France are still up in arms against marriage equality, which is law in France. But like in the U.S. there are still murmurs of fighting it while homophobia and transphobia continue to be issues for the LGBTQ+ community France. 

We remain vigilant, but hopeful. After all, Paris has been through a lot over the centuries – as we share on our tours – and the changes in the Marais and the passing of Open Café will be just another chapter in a story that is getting happier day by day, little by little.