Cruising For Coffee: Big Cup's Gay Coffeehouse
Located at 228 8th Ave in the heart of Manhattan's Chelsea, Big Cup was a gay-oriented tea & coffeehouse that served as a vital hangout spot for the LGBTQ community & which became notorious for its heavy cruising scene. Employees at Big Cup even lovingly nicknamed their workplace "Gay Grand Central."
Big Cup 1st opened in 1994 & was owned by partners Cliff Bradshaw & Scott Siler, who also ran the gay nightspot Hell in the Meatpacking District for 9 years. Big Cup was modeled after the coffee shops of the West Coast & offered a casual place for gay men to socialize. Women & straight men were welcome too, but as 1 review at the time put it, "They just seem sort of irrelevant." Employees at Big Cup seemed to be 1/2 barista, 1/2 party host. Success came to Big Cup immediately. According to Mr. Bradshaw in a NYTimes writeup: “I don’t think we anticipated the reaction, that this would catch on this quickly.”
On any given night, music & crowds would fill the airy room with its Day-Glo interior & people would often spill out onto the sidewalk. The NYTimes described Big Cup as “a laid-back, quirky cuppa-cappuccino hangout that is flea-market cozy…Big Cup invites sippers to sink into lumpy couches & overstuffed lounge chairs & to rest their drinks on kitschy tables. One wall is painted a deep, blazing pink; another is tree frog lime with lilac-colored flowers.”
Big Cup attracted a predominantly LGBTQ crowd: “Customers, most in their 20’s & 30’s, display the gamut from coats & ties to nose rings & tattoos. Some carry magazines to read or scripts to edit; there is a sprinkling of Powerbooks & cellular phones. Monday is bingo night. Tuesday nights feature tarot readings.” Queer teens too young to access bars found kindred spirits here & Big Cup quickly gained a reputation as a place for gay men to cruise each other. According to @kmacc76: "It was definitely the Grindr of that time. You went there to hook up haha...The building across the street was called "Big Cup Tower" because that’s usually where you ended up".
Big Cup soon was featured in gay guidebooks as such & tourists & new arrivals to the city flocked to Big Cup in search of Chelsea's lively gay scene. "I was a Jewish kid from Long Island going to temple, & I could come in here & be as flighty as I wanted to be," said Joseph Adamski, a regular patron at Big Cup, "It was liberating."
In 2005, it was announced that Big Cup was closing, the victim of rising rents. According to Siler at the time: "The rent is over 3 times what it once was...you can only charge so much for a cup of coffee."
The announcement of Big Cup's closure shocked the community & inspired a concerted effort to push to keep it open, to no avail. Customers eulogized its loss with written notes:
"Every community needs its focus place—this has been that for Chelsea."
"This was 1 of the first places I discovered upon coming out & it was this place that helped that process."
"Closing will significantly affect my sex life."
Comments with nothing but love for Big Cup came pouring in:
Teddy Pecora (@teddypecora) wrote: “The best hangout cruise spot in Chelsea in the 90’s. A ton of memories!”
Drag King legend Mo B. Dick (@mrmobdick) recalled: “Def iconic spot! @dantesab1 read tarot cards here for years accumulating a cult following 😍.”
Basil Reyes (@basilnyctx): “I loved seeing the boys working on their clamshell Mac iBooks (in tangerine or blueberry).”
Meanwhile, while reminiscing @pineapple_factory_gallery name dropped several other Chelsea spots I'll have to cover soon: “We used to sit in the back & kiki for hours, def was our spot! If I remember correctly, Tops & Bottoms was next door, & also Nasty Pig & Camouflage, those were the fun ‘90s Chelsea moments!”
Many thanks to @kmacc76 for suggesting the site!
I was one Scott and Cliff's opening hires at Big Cup NYC. They had also had success in Washington DC with a similar format in Dupont Circle which was my hood in the early 90's. I made lifetime friends with the most amazing and entertaining people at Big Cup. Scott and Cliff were a pleasure to work for.