Zuni Lipstick Lesbian Party

To escape the noisy crowd a block away from our apartment in Civic Center this afternoon, my soon-to-be-legal-in-50-states spouse and I escaped to the Castro district for lunch. We figured it would be festive and without the mobs, and we guessed right.



On our way, we stumbled across a large sidewalk party outside of the Zuni Cafe on Market Street that seemed to be predominantly lipstick lesbians who were not suburban twinks.



"Is this something new?" I asked one woman, and she replied, "No, I've been coming to Zuni for a lunch party on Pride since the 1980s."



I googled "lesbians Zuni pride" later in the afternoon and found an amusing, well-written account of last year's Pride festivities on a blog by Chris Lenwell called from ellis island to ellis act.



Linwell starts his Pride essay with:

"No self-respecting gay San Franciscan participates in the City’s vast grab for tourist dollars called the Pride Parade...Back in the day it was a street party where you’d run into lots of people you knew being silly and stupid. You would do bad things like get drunk on a Sunday afternoon and eat those awful barbecued turkey legs because it was the only food around. Once fortified you could go on to do other bad things."

But he relents later on:

"The last time I went to Zuni on Pride we sat down and had a late lunch. Not a chance this year. Apparently a decade or two ago it turned into a (mostly) Lesbian hangout on the day of days. It was one huge bar scene spilling out into the street and side alley. Getting up to the bar was impossible but Leigh, in her inimitable way, had our Margaritas in no time. They were so potent we decided to have a second."