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According to Stokes, a space like AYA is important for queer youth who are looking to find a community space away from home and school. Hancie Stokes, the communications manager of queer youth organization SMYAL, is collaborating with AYA on programming. “Lunch and learns” will bring speakers to their café and intergenerational hangouts will give LGBTQ+ elders, middle-aged folks, and youth a chance to connect, they say. Part of McDaniel and Pike’s mission is to incorporate families and queer youth into their space.
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The couple has been working on renovating the space since signing the lease in November 2021. Upstairs, there’s a DJ booth, a bar, dancing space and a game room. AYA has two floors, one with seating and a kitchen, equipped with a coffee bar. That’s purposeful, according to McDaniel. Snuggling into one of the space’s many couches amid boxes of unpacked decor, McDaniel and Pike seem right at home in the space, which isn’t flashy with rainbow decor like other queer bars might be. If all you want to do is jump up and down until you’re dripping in sweat for hours on a Friday, this is the place for you.” If you don’t stay out past 10 p.m., there’s a place for you here. “So if you don’t drink, there’s a place for you here. “We want to remove anything that others anyone,” McDaniel says. But for McDaniel and Pike, AYA offers a chance to use their experiences working in the LGBTQ+ bar scene to change what queer spaces can be. Alcohol and age restrictions have played a part in LGBTQ+ community spaces across the country since gay bars began popping up as places of refuge and safety.
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is home to several gay bars, mostly in the northwest quadrant of the city and with a patronage of 21+ LGBTQ+ folks. Situated on the corner about a block from the Eastern Market Metro stop, AYA is one part club and bar and one part daytime café - a community center as much as it is a nightlife spot. Real-life couple McDaniel and Pike describe AYA as a queer bar, but are quick to clarify that the space is for anyone to come “as you are.” “And sometimes that’s money, and sometimes that’s race, and sometimes that’s physical presentation.” “To me, removing many of the exclusionary stipulations that are inherently in gay bars,” says McDaniel, the former manager of lesbian bar A League of Her Own. The co-owners of As You Are Bar, which opened in Washington, D.C., last week, are much more interested in shifting what they see as the exclusionary nature of gay bars, a mission they refer to as “queering the gay bar agenda.” Jo McDaniel and Rach Pike know that, but they don’t care. A bar that caters to family, doesn’t center around alcohol, and allows 18+ entry isn’t necessarily the best business model in a city.