More than Coffee: LGBTQ+-Owned Cafes Serve Pride and Community

The Clapping Monkey House of Coffee

Local gay couple David Wenzel and Joshua Larson operate a multi-tiered business in Fridley. Their latest business, The Clapping Monkey House of Coffee, opened in 2023. Their other business, Wild Things Antiques, debuted almost 10 years ago.

“[Joshua] always wanted to have a coffee shop, but we could never make it work,” Wenzel shares. “Then four years ago, we opened the Wild Things Collective, which is like an antique mall, and with that, we hit the ground running pretty quickly and had a waitlist of people that wanted to be a part of the collective.”

When the owners of Clapping Monkey Coffee first moved into their location, they quickly realized the space offered more potential than they initially expected.

Because much of the infrastructure was already in place, the team was able to move forward with the project much faster than anticipated.

“It felt like the universe brought us this opportunity to build our own coffee shop,” the owner says. “Having that structure allowed us to implement things much faster than you would normally expect.”

From the beginning, the couple envisioned the Minneapolis-area coffee shop as more than just a place to grab a drink. They wanted it to be a third space, somewhere people can gather, relax and simply be themselves.

“When we opened, we said we’re going to be authentically us,” Wenzel says. “It’s two husbands that own this business, and we’re not going to shy away from that. We want to champion our community and create a space where people can be themselves.”

Today, Clapping Monkey Coffee has grown into a vibrant hub for LGBTQ+ patrons and allies alike, offering not only specialty drinks and comfort food but also a steady lineup of community-centered events.

The shop’s most popular drink highlights its playful personality.

“Our house flavor is called ‘Go Bananas,’” says Grayson Gable, the manager who helps run the coffee side of the business. “It’s banana, hazelnut and vanilla.”

Supporting other small businesses was an intentional choice.

“All of our pastries are from local bakers, and our coffee is roasted by a local roaster,” Gable says.

Wenzel says the region’s welcoming culture made it easier to embrace their identity openly.

“I look back and think, we could never have done this in Cincinnati,” he says. “The Twin Cities has such an expansive, accepting community.”

Still, he believes queer-centered sober spaces remain rare.

“We need more queer sober spaces,” he says. “We wanted to create something fun, engaging and welcoming — not just for the queer community, but for everybody.”

Community programming plays a major role in that vision.

The coffee shop hosts drag bingo twice a month, led by performer Tommy St. James. Other events include a monthly “Scrap and Yap” craft night where people gather to create art together and gaming meetups where LGBTQ+ gamers spend the day playing board games and tabletop role-playing games.

“We asked ourselves; how do we further support our community?” Wenzel says. “So, we created space where local makers can sell their goods every day while the shop is open.”

Much of the welcoming environment comes from the people behind the counter. Gable says the shop prioritizes making each customer interaction personal.

“One of the most important things we do is ask for every person’s name,” he says. “We want it to feel like a personable experience.”

Most of the coffee shop staff also identify as LGBTQ+, something Gable says helps many customers feel comfortable.

“People can come in and see themselves behind the counter,” he says. “That creates safety. A lot of our regulars are queer in some way, and it becomes a place where everyone feels like they belong.”

Visitors often discover the shop through word of mouth in LGBTQ+ community groups.

“That makes me really happy to hear,” Wenzel says when told the shop is frequently recommended online. “It means we’re doing what we set out to do.”

Community support

Perhaps the strongest example of the shop’s community support came three years ago, when a catastrophic water main break flooded the building.

“It was right around our one-year anniversary,” Wenzel says. “There was one to two inches of water and mud everywhere.”

After posting a call for help on social media during Fourth of July weekend — when many Minnesotans are at cabins or traveling — the response was overwhelming.

“Within four hours, we had about 125 people here,” he says. “They helped empty the space and clean it out.”

Over the next month, an estimated 200 to 250 volunteers helped the business recover.

“That was the defining moment when we realized we meant something to people,” Wenzel says. “The community lifted us up.”

Paying that support forward

The shop has tried to give back whenever possible.

Recently, Clapping Monkey Coffee donated an entire day’s sales to the Fridley Public Schools Foundation. The fundraiser raised more than $3,500 for the organization.

“It ended up being our biggest day ever,” Gable says. “People were ordering multiple drinks or just handing us cash donations because they wanted to contribute.”

For Wenzel, moments like that reinforce why the shop exists.

Five years from now, the owners say they simply hope to keep doing what they’re already doing.

“I think we’re on the right track,” Wenzel says. “It’s really just about continuing to be our authentic selves and continuing to be a space for the community.”

For first-time visitors walking through the door, the goal is simple.

“I hope they feel welcome,” Gable says. “You’ll see people from all different backgrounds doing all different things, but everyone feels safe here.”

Workhorse Coffee Bar

Located on University Avenue in Saint Paul, Workhorse Coffee Bar is an LGBTQ+-owned business founded by owners and partners Ty Barnett and Shannon Forney in May of 2015.

The coffee bar is known not only for its welcoming atmosphere but also for its fan-favorite picks, including cold brew, baked goods and quiche, all made in-house from scratch. The business sources locally and gets its coffee from Up Coffee in Minneapolis.

Barnett, who has worked as a barista since the age of 17, had a dream of opening her own coffee shop early on.

“It was oddly the most consistent thing,” Barnett says. “I went to many different colleges for many different things over the years, but always had a coffee shop job, and I loved it.”

After working at only her second coffee shop in her late teens, Barnett told herself that one day she was going to have her own shop. Since then, she has moved and worked all over the U.S., but always aimed to work at queer-owned establishments.

“It’s just a different layer of community building,” Barnett says. “There is something about a coffee shop, specifically in the queer community, where it becomes a beacon.”

In the past, the coffee shop has had community groups use the space to play board games or knit together, and they hope to increase that community involvement in the future.

“I’ve also worked in non-queer based places, and there is still community,” she continues. “I think it’s one of those gaps that coffee shops kind of fill in general society, but there is something special about being a queer safe space.”

Looking back at her own personal experience as a queer teenager living in Minnesota, Barnett recalls not having a safe space to go to.

“It’s really cool to see young people get something like that,” she shares. “That wasn’t necessarily a thing. I can’t think of one shop when I was a teenager in the Twin Cities that was a place for gay people, but it’s neat to provide that for young people specifically.”