Day-By-Day Cafe

477 West Seventh Street, St. Paul, MN (1975-Present)

A Photo of the Day by Day's storefront, 2001. Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.

The Coney Island Restaurant in St. Paul, the Seward Café in Minneapolis, and scores of other coffeehouses and restaurants in the Twin Cities pull substantial crowds of queer people without specifically seeking them; this patronage redefines historic interpretations of what constitutes GLBT space. Eateries, storefronts, and other urban uses in the shared built environment are unlike gay bars, cruising sites, community organizations, or queer institutions, as they are blended spaces that are considerable in the history of both heterosexuality and queerness.

Once four blocks from the infamous Foxy's Bar, the Day by Day was a supportive business for the concentration of queer women who lived along West Seventh Street.(1) As its name implies, the restaurant is a sober space—in this respect, it may have offered a St. Paul counterpart to A Woman's Coffeehouse in Minneapolis.

Queer women have consistently expressed dissatisfaction with the social scene in the Twin Cities—frequently, this discontent surfaces from class conflicts,(2) racial tension,(3) and ideological differences.(4) Bars are especially targeted: Foxy’s was known as a place for “bad dykes,” Lucy's was the site of several murders, and plenty of other liquor-serving lesbian establishments carried negative reputations. In other instances, the dissatisfied women are recovering from earlier periods of alcohol abuse; they found few nonalcoholic spaces for meeting others.

Recovering alcoholics contend with a longstanding history of alcohol-centrism in the queer community.(5) The first and only spaces for the postwar gay and lesbian communities were bars (see: Kirmser's Bar, The Dugout Bar, the 19 Bar). The first gay and lesbian recovery facility opened in 1972, but Christopher Street (Minneapolis), opened in Minneapolis—St. Paul did not have a complimentary facility. Instead, women in Alcoholics Anonymous groups, already living in the West Seventh area, met in the Day by Day instead. To date, the restaurant is a quiet and almost imperceptible site of interest for queer women.

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(1) Tretter, Jean-Nickolaus. Interview with the author and Jacob Gentz, 1/16/10.

(2) Curnoyer, Nany. Interview with the author and Jacob Gentz, March 2009.

(3) "A Woman's Coffehouse Collection," recording of a collective meeting, 2/9/1985. Availible in the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies, University of Minnesota Libraries.

(4) Ibid.

(5) McNaron, Toni A.H. Ed. Zimmerman, Bonnie and Haggerty, George E.. "Alcohol and Substance Abuse" Lesbian Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing, 2000. Pages 22-23.

Part of Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN: 100 Queer Places in Minnesota History, (1860-1969), (1969-2010)