Gigis gay bar

Once you come through the door, it is a magical experience. I’ve known some people that committed suicide because of it. 50 years is about the same time that Stonewall has been around, and we know that that’s a historical site now. Move on.

Luis Mandujano: We’re working hard to try and hopefully make this a historical site one day.

During Halloween, it was kind of, okay, you can be whoever you want to be because for that night it’s acceptable. We would put on shows and benefit shows for research and trying to find the cure and trying to bury some of our friends their families had abandoned them because of their sexual orientation or whatever.

The establishment featured female go-go dancers, many of whom were allegedly lesbian, and soon attracted a large female crowd.

In 1973, 35-year-old Tony Garneau, a former grocer, acquired the bar and turned it all the way gay. We at Gigi’s want people to feel the same way when they walk through our doors. This is for people that are looking for a good time and entertainment.

That makes Gigi’s the oldest gay-owned gay bar still in operation in Detroit.

Gigi’s holds another distinction as well. It was so much hate back then. “I know I can always come back there. We speak the language of love. I asked him one day, and I was like, why don’t we ever put money outside? We’re going to be celebrating, in October, our 50-year anniversary.

You could have, basically, gone to jail. During his tenure, Café Gigi’s, as it was then called, was a supper club for a time. Just ask DJ Chico, who started visiting the bar in 1979. Some have managed to steal Gigi’s crowd away for a while, but the bar has always persevered, and the crowd always eventually came back.

I was absent from the bar for several years in the ’90s while I lived in Miami.