Out on Main & Out in the Open

While gay bars and restaurants might still be few and far between in the U.S. today, there are still many more than in the mid-1990s. Back then, it was truly a revolutionary act to be an openly queer restaurant owner — to be openly queer at all. And that’s just what co-founder of Out On Main, the U.S.’s first LGBTQ+-themed restaurant, Michael Caven, did (and is doing!) with his life: a beautiful act of revolution, simply in existence.

Caven’s story doesn’t start with Out On Main, but it is a huge part of his journey into the public eye. “My role as co-founder of Out On Main began with a simple question I asked my then-partner and Out On Main co-founder Tom Grote: ‘At a historical roundtable, what would Alexander the Great, Willa Cather, Tennessee Williams and Eleanor Roosevelt say to each other, what stories would they share, what lessons have been learned?’ And so the idea for Out On Main was born,” he says.

The LGBTQ+-themed restaurant opened its doors on National Coming Out Day in October 1996 and became a community staple and safe haven for the next six years, before closing after September 11, 2001.

Caven knew the importance, especially since the concept had never been done before, of creating a specifically queer restaurant space. He and Grote understood that to create an openly queer space would mean they had to become cultural icons, in a way … and of course, be publicly open as a gay couple in the ‘90s.

“Our story was important: a gay male couple in their early 30s, successful, happy, enthralling business. How great for young people in Columbus to see and be inspired by!” Caven says.

“We wanted to create a safe space for LGBTQ folk to meet and eat and share space openly, with big windows onto Main Street, no longer in the shadows,” Caven continues. “We wanted to change the cultural landscape, open things up and as a community be more visible, more viable, more acknowledged: Yes, we are here and we’re celebrating our past and our present lives.”

Of course, this was no easy task. Even though Caven says that there was much more openness and acceptance in Columbus than he or Grote had expected.

“I think people were shocked at our openness and commitment to being a visible and well-known LGBTQ+ establishment,” he notes. “I felt a sense of pride at meetings with Ohio business leaders being openly queer and not giving a damn what any might think about me.”

This bravery served Caven well, with his openness and community activism helping to earn him and Grote the HRC’s Equality Award.

And, along with their dedication to the community, Out On Main was also a lot of fun. They were always hosting celebrities (in fact, Ms. Eartha Kitt loved Out On Main’s Weiner Schnitzel), throwing parties with themed dinners (like the final meal served on the Titanic, for example!) and much, much, more.

Caven shared a story about some of their celebrity guests, saying, “Betty DeGeneres, who at the time was an LGBTQ+ ally activist traveling the USA, was an annual visitor to Out On Main. She’d say, ‘Someday I’m gonna bring Ellen!’ And she did — on her 70th birthday when Ellen was playing The Palace Theatre. Ellen, Betty, Anne Heche and a group of 20 others arrived, I served as bodyguard so they could dine in peace (fans waited patiently) and afterward I gave Ellen a tour around our restaurant.”

While Out On Main is a massive accomplishment for Caven, he doesn’t consider it the most important work of his life.

“The most important accomplishment of [my] life, even more than OOM, was putting my former high school predator teacher out of business,” Caven says.

In a story of incredible bravery and strength from Caven, he says, his former high school teacher “began grooming me at 15, and by 16 years old, the seduction and abuse. I thought he was my friend and mentor. Then, ten years later, he sent me sexually explicit Polaroids taken of me at 16, and I began to slowly put the pieces together. With the help of a therapist, I came to terms with what this man did to me and found a way to bring him to justice, take him down and permanently remove him from the education system.”

This story of courage and resilience helped inspire Caven to write a memoir, “Spilling the Tea,” which he’s currently writing. In it, he talks about his life as a gay man, his experience with Out On Main, the traumatic and heroic story of how he got his predator teacher removed from the school system, and his time living with Frank Caven in his mansion in the sky in Dallas, where he became “enmeshed in his chaotic and wild gay bar empire, with large characters and even larger drama and ‘situations.’”

Caven’s memoir is a tribute to the many versions of himself that existed and still exist.

“At times the tears came before the words, other times the words have been followed by tears. Writing ‘Spilling the Tea’ has been life-changing as I’ve faced my worst and best experiences in life,” Caven says. And he adds, as a teaser, that in the memoir, he, “deliver[s] a lot of juicy stuff, page-turning, oh my God stuff” about gay life in Dallas in the 1980s.

Michael Caven’s story is truly one you don’t want to miss out on.

“My story is difficult and complicated. Certainly, Out On Main is a highlight and easy to digest. Victim Michael, Hustler Michael, Survivor Michael [are] not easy, just ask anyone with a personal connection to me, they’d rather I stay known as Restaurant Michael … because of their own shame about some aspects of my past,” he says. “But I’m not writing for them. I’m writing for readers who have no personal connection to me and find my stories interesting, captivating, inspiring and a statement of resilience: Never give up, no matter what.” Caven expects publication by early 2026.