Michigan's Oldest Gay Bar is in Grand Rapids

Michigan's Oldest Gay Bar is the Apartment Lounge in Grand Rapids, 53 years old in 2025.

Over the decades, the bar kept re-locating from place to place. When it opened in 1972, it was located in a building on Lyon Street across from the Vandenberg Center.

From there it went to the southeast corner of Ionia and Fulton, the northeast corner of Fulton and Monroe (the current B.O.B. Location), to Bridge Street on the West Side, down Bridge for a year, then to Plainfield Ave Northwest. In 1978, they moved to The B.O.B location for 10 years until they moved to their current place on Sheldon Boulevard - site of the former Incredible Edible Cafe' - by 1988.

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According to their web page, referring to back in the day when the Apartment Lounge was located where the B.O.B. is now, “Many regulars have very fond memories of that old place; the urinal trough always filled with ice, to the game room in the back.....It actually contained several pinball machines but there were always other 'games' taking place”.

Find out more history and goings-on at Michigan's Oldest Gay Bar on their web page. Don't confuse this place with Gigi's, The Oldest Gay Bar in Detroit.