It was the first time in my life where I felt like I belonged in a space because it was filled with people just like me. When Annie herself passed away in 2013, then-mayor Vincent Gray formalized her legacy by naming a nearby street after her.ĭupont Circle was already the gayborhood in 1999 when Felix Johnson first came to Annie’s as an 18-year-old: “I saw men holding hands, kissing, and living freely!” The podcaster and real estate agent says, “Annie’s felt like home. The route of D.C.’s annual Pride Parade was plotted so that it could pass the steakhouse. In the years that followed, during the height of the AIDS crisis, Annie’s became a rare haven for people infected with HIV, continuing to welcome and serve customers without discrimination, and to mourn the waiters and friends who were lost to the virus.Īnnie’s, now run by Paul Katinas, Annie’s nephew and George’s son, remains a landmark for the LGBTQ+ community.
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(Annie’s appeal extends beyond the gay community, too: The James Beard Foundation gave it the America’s Classics Award, an honor reserved for restaurants with “timeless appeal” and “quality food that reflects the character of their communities.”) The new location was not just bigger but its large street-facing windows also signaled a change, a new era in gay visibility and pride. Katinas added Annie’s name to the Paramount Steakhouse during the 1960s partly to honor her unwavering support of the LGBTQ+ community.īy 1985, Annie’s Paramount Steakhouse had become so popular that the restaurant relocated to a bigger location down the block in Dupont Circle.
The story goes that Annie noticed a male couple holding hands under a table and told them that they didn’t have to hide their affection there.
Her legendary compassion is the reason why the restaurant came to be known as Annie’s by gay patrons. His five sisters helped Katinas run the restaurant, including Annie Kaylor, who worked behind the bar from 1952 until her death in 2013. Paramount was not shielded from police raids, but customers got a warm welcome back. In the 1950s, the steakhouse became a popular spot for closeted gay men working on Capitol Hill to socialize.
Paramount was opened in 1948 on 17th and Church Streets in Dupont Circle by a recently returned World War II veteran, George Katinas, the son of Greek immigrants. In the years leading up to New York’s 1969 Stonewall Uprising, when homosexuality was illegal and bars where gays gathered were subject to frequent police raids, gay men in Washington, D.C., would gather at the Paramount Steakhouse. “A big part of the reason I felt comfortable coming out as a trans woman in 2019 was because I lived in D.C.” being the seat of our government makes it a natural destination for equality-minded people and specifically those who want to fight for LGBTQ+ rights,” says Jayde Coler, a 32-year-old queer barista and recently minted lawyer. Through the advocacy of long-standing queer-friendly businesses like Annie’s Paramount Steakhouse (honored as a “forever listing” by the Mapping the Gay Guides project), as well as the relative safety and freedom afforded by neighborhoods like Dupont Circle, Washington became a vital player in the history of gay rights, ground zero for landmark Supreme Court decisions, massive demonstrations, and the site of the most famous display of the 1.3 million-square-foot AIDS Memorial Quilt, among other monumental events.
deserves a special place in the story of queer history, too. Cities like New York and San Francisco may be better known as battlegrounds for gay rights, but Washington, D.C.