West Hollywood’s “Big Gay” Starbucks shut its doors to the public for the last time Sunday, and WEHOville was there to witness this end of an era. Catch a last look at the cafe on Santa Monica Blvd. and the microcosm of the community it nurtured for many years.
Video by Larry Block
Interview by Larry Block
re doors are locked
Photos by Brandon Garcia
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My many years at Big Gay Starbucks–I was part of the original crew that gave it that name–didn’t resemble anything like this modern-day scenario. It was the most amazing gathering spot in West Hollywood. It was very community-oriented, there was a LOT of good-looking guys, and it was super-cruisey. It was like a bar without the boize. It used to be a utopia.
This was an attempt to BUST the Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) Union and, NOT in response to the bogus overwhelming crime problem. The Workers clearly say it’s coercion against labor organizing NOT only for fair pay & working conditions but, opposing any democracy in the workplace. What corporate Starbucks is doing merits our anger NOT our sympathy. As an ongoing (SBWU) Union organizing wave won over more than 300 Starbucks stores, workers allege egregious union-busting tactics including unnecessary closures ❗
Do you ever wake up in a happy mood and see the joy that is out there in the universe to be had?
Blame the city council all you want … the closure of this Starbucks location is based on the historic ways in which Starbucks mistreats their employees. Period.
Please due your due diligence on other Starbucks closures and the retribution this company enacts on their employees in order to scare them into not wanting to unionize.
This is not the only Starbucks that closed its doors. This should tell you what’s really going on in Los Angeles and it’s not good. If you continue to support left wing liberal idiology this and more will be the result.
here will these folks hang out that used to sit for hours ‘working’ [or was it cruising?] at Big Bucks. Possibly buy a coffee maker and save money having coffee at home? OR can they afford internet paying so much for over roasted coffee? LOL!!!!
I hope CBTL sees an opportunity to return to a Boystown adjacent location here…
If another decent coffee place moved into this space, I’d move my approx 6k yearly Java habit over to them instead of Bux
Far bigger than a cup of coffee is community itself. For many of us Old Farts that still remember the Abbey was only coffee and desert and someplace that attracted the Gay community from all over the country, the Valley, OC , San Gabriel Valley and beyond, when that became mostly a bar, for many Starbucks was the only option in town and became a central meeting point and safe spot across from what was 24 hr fitness. While I understand and support change stop and ask what are we allowing to be done to ourselves as a result. Don’t… Read more »
I’d actually go to the Abbey if it reverted back to coffee and dessert.
Sad to know that a coffee shop represents a “community itself”. It’s a cup of coffee folks and maybe desert, not a pillar of the community by any stretch. Plenty of worthwhile things can be found to occupy one’s time. Times have surely changed.
At Starbucks stupid liberal policies of allow the homeless to sit in their facility that allow this to happen also no one’s addressing the fact that they want to become part of the union do you think they’re not gonna trim the fat edges of have to become part of the union?
I didn’t realize West Hollywood had morphed into Mayberry, ignorance and all.
More a case of “Mayberry” internet trolls posting on West Hollywood website comment sections❗
Lol. Y’all closed this place when you turned a blind eye to crime and “compassion” for the drug addicts (not homeless). We’ll done, gay liberals.
Exactly!