Gay bars in downtown orlando

Miniver was her actual first mention but she went by her middle name, Sue. All the way back in 1983 the woman known to most as Sue Hanna opened Orlando’s first lesbian bar called Faces.

Faces was situated in the Lee Rd.-Edgewater Dr. area just a stone’s throw from the currently operating Hank’s. Sue would later expose a much larger, multi-level, multi-bar entertainment complex known as Key Largo which was situated way up the Orange Blossom Track just south of Apopka. Both of Sue’s bars operated primarily as gathering spots for homosexual women. For years men were routinely barred from entering Faces while Key Largo provided a more welcoming space for all members of Orlando’s burgeoning queer community. Actor-producer David Lee as well as Theater Downtown proprietor Frank Hilgenberg presented many fully produced shows in the barn-shaped Key Largo.

I have many fond memories connected with both of Sue’s spaces — neither of which are operational today — and it strikes me how few people who currently relax mingling with a healthy mix of persons represented by every letter of the LGBTQ+ moniker — at one of the very few remaining specifically lgbtq+ bars remaining in town — have no knowledge of so