A couple of months ago, early on a chilly Thursday evening, some 500 lesbians descended on Broadway Market for an impromptu street party. Tinnies in hand, the crowd were gathered to try their luck at getting into a mysterious new bar called La Camionera (lacamionera.com), initially intended as a fortnightly pop-up serving cheap tapas and sultry lighting.
Chaos quickly ensued. The entire road was blocked by excitable queer people, all hoping to cram into the tiny, 50-capacity venue. The beer ran out, the speakers blew, and a sizeable chunk of attendees bumped into at least one ex. Why this extraordinary level of interest? It wasn’t just the cheap vermouth; before La Camionera opened its doors, there was only one permanent lesbian bar left standing in the whole of London. One, for all London lesbians? It seems shocking, if not a little absurd, but it’s part of a wider decimation of LGBTQ+ spaces in the capital — between 2006 and 2022, over half of the city’s venues shut down for good.
