Dining Out
First Dates, Defiant Nights, and Last Call Disco Fries at America's Gay Restaurants
$48.32
- Hardcover
352 pages
- Release Date
11 August 2025
Summary
As gay restaurants evolve and chart new futures, journalist Erik Piepenburg takes readers on a tour of American gay dining, with stops at 1930s Automats, lesbian bistros, Wisconsin sports bars, pioneering drag brunches, and other restaurant destinations, including his own beloved diners. It’s a trip that’s full of joy, sex, sorrow, activism, and nostalgia.
Dining Out explores how gay people came of age, came out, and fought for their rights not just in gay bars or the streets…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780306832161 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 030683216X |
| Author: | Erik Piepenburg |
| Publisher: | Hachette Books |
| Imprint: | Da Capo Press Inc |
| Format: | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages: | 352 |
| Release Date: | 11 August 2025 |
| Weight: | 596g |
| Dimensions: | 250mm x 160mm x 30mm |
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Critics Review
“Dining Out turns the everyday act of eating in restaurants into a narrative of memory, culture and community. … [Here, ] New York Times writer Erik Piepenburg waxes nostalgic as he drops into diners, coffee shops, and hole-in-the-walls where gay owners and clientele have created enduring bastions of community over the years. From Annie’s in Washington, DC to Orphan Andy’s in San Francisco, he celebrates the ways that breaking bread has helped hold us together.”–PASSPORT’s Best Books for Fall 2025“New York Times reporter Erik Piepenburg shines a long-overdue spotlight on the vital but often overlooked role restaurants have played in LGBTQ+ life–a history that’s received far less attention than that of bars. … Through interviews with diners, servers, owners, and activists, Piepenburg makes the case that even today–when queer couples can eat openly in most restaurants–spaces shaped by and for LGBTQ+ people continue to matter.”–Kitchen Arts & Letters
“Dining Out is at once a thoroughly researched investigation of gay restaurants and their impact on the resistance movements of the past and present, as well as a dedication to the queer community that Piepenburg holds dear. His experience as a journalist is evident in the piece’s structure and voice, but so is his reverence for all those who have been othered in spaces where they should be welcomed.”
–Chicago Review of Books“Erik Piepenburg’s Dining Out looks at 150 years of queer American food establishments, from cafeterias to diners to bathhouses. He argues that gay (his chosen modifier, meant to encompass all queer and LGBTQ people) restaurants–defined simply as places where gay people eat–have been every bit as essential to connection, activism, and queer history as have bars. … Any topical survey will wrstel with the subjective nature of queer belonging, but in Dining Out, Piepenburg’s rigorous research and sensitive reporting are vital to the book’s impact.”–The New York Times Book Review“If there’s one thing on which many in the LGBTQ community can agree, we like to eat in restaurants, be it breakfast, brunch (which we may not have invented, but we perfected), lunch, supper/dinner or late-night noshing. In Dining Out: First Dates, Defiant Nights, and Last Call Disco Fries at America’s Gay Restaurants (Grand Central, 2025), Erik Piepenburg narrows his delicious focus on LGBTQ dining establishments, incorporating history and hunger satisfaction.”–Lavender Magazine“Piepenburg delivers an insightful and entertaining exploration of history-rich queer restaurants and their progressive impact on visibility and identity within a culture in constant flux. A fond, appreciative, nostalgic nod to queer eateries across the country.”–Kirkus ReviewsAbout The Author
Erik Piepenburg
Erik Piepenburg has been writing for The New York Times for almost 20 years, covering mostly LGBTQ+ issues, film and television but also food and travel, and writes a monthly column for The Times about one of his guilty pleasures: horror movies. Originally and proudly from Cleveland, he lives with his partner in New York City.
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