By day it’s a skate shop crossed with a café, by night it’s Atlanta’s only lesbian bar. It’s the center of the sapphic scene in Atlanta, and it’s all owned by lesbians.
One of the cafe’s owners, Lindzey Schaffer, better known as Schaf, says that’s a point of pride.
“For Atlanta, there are a lot of gay bars and queer bars where there’s a lot of men that are employed, which is fine, but we don’t have that many spaces where it’s women in every aspect of the business, and for here it is, which is awesome,” she said. “This space is lesbian owned daytime and night.”
Nestled on Crescent Street in Midtown, Atlanta’s primary gayborhood, My Sister’s Room, known by its initials MSR, has stood as a nightlife establishment of the lesbian, queer and trans communities of the city since 1996. Since earlier this year, the space has also become the home to a daytime LGBTQ+ cafe called Schaf Shop.
Both establishments are owned and operated by married lesbian couples, and they’re proud of their position: To have spaces specifically targeting lesbians is a rarity in Atlanta’s queer scene.
MSR’s tagline is “A Place Where Everyone Is Welcome,” and weekly Wednesday night karaoke embodies that spirit. Patrons ranging in age, race, gender and singing talent took to the stage and cheered on their friends well past midnight, even on a weeknight. Singers belted out tracks from Pink Pony Club to a German-language version of 80s hit 99 Luftballons to a room of cheering queers.
“It’s good to have a space where I just feel very comfortable,” said Bex Vanorder, 22, who grew up in the conservative Atlanta suburbs. “I’ve done karaoke other places, but there’s just something different about being here, just around other queer people, it just feels a lot more welcoming and accepting.”
Their go-to karaoke song is “Love Shack” by the B-52s.
“You don’t have to be a lesbian or a part of the community, you can just come here to have fun and be yourself,” one of the bartenders during karaoke said. “But more importantly that people like lesbians, queer people, trans people have a place to go and enjoy themselves without having to worry about anything.”
My Sister’s Room is not just the only lesbian bar in the city, but the only one in Georgia and one of only a small handful in the South. Lesbian bars are few and often far-between nationwide — there are only 38 total in the U.S.
“It’s really important to have a space where we are seen for how we want to be seen,” said Erica Rose, one of the founders of the Lesbian Bar Project, a docuseries and initiative to support the nation’s remaining lesbian bars. “There are very few places in society where we are catered to specifically, and a lesbian bar caters to us and everyone else is a guest in our space.”
Now that the space extends beyond the bar scene, the building is even more central to serving the community’s needs — and the needs of one of the owners, which inspired the cafe’s creation in the first place.
Schaf was diagnosed in 2020 with stage 4 breast cancer and given six months to live by her doctors. She had to cut all toxins out of her life, which made being in spaces with alcohol difficult.
That eventually prompted her and her wife to open their own coffee shop. Now, she and her wife Taylor, the owners of Schaf Shop, are proud to maintain the alcohol-free environment that she needed, which lets members of Atlanta’s queer community connect in ways beyond drinking.
“It was a blessing in disguise to quit any toxins, but then also to provide a space for other people that don’t drink,” Schaf said. “Seeing people connect not under the influence is iconic. The conversations are 1000 percent different, and you can just see light in people’s eyes and their soul speaking.”
While the shop is a home for the lesbian community more broadly, that very community is also how it came to be — the Schaffers have known Jen and Jami, the owners of MSR, since before they were even old enough to go to bars.
“We’ve known them for that long and they’ve watched us grow and been like a really big part of our life for 10 years, and when they found out we were opening down the street, they were like, ‘No, you guys need to open in here. It’ll be four females owning a business’,” Schaf said.
While Schaf Shop is in the process of establishing its own permanent brick-and-mortar facility a few blocks away, that fact of having four lesbians — two married lesbian couples — in charge of their current space is central to the mission for Schaf.
Day or night, the queer Atlantans who frequent MSR and Schaf find community there — from karaoke to coffee.
“It’s special in its own right,” Vanorder said during karaoke. “There’s just a sense of feeling more seen here, as a lesbian, and there’s just that comfort feeling.”