Dorothy Living Archive Collection

Dorothy is, in their own words, "Chicago’s only lesbian bar." Originally opening in Chicago's West Town/Ukranian Village area on Valentine's Day in 2020, Dorothy was forced to close by the COVID-19 pandemic. Since reopening in July 2022, the 70s-themed basement cocktail lounge has been a bustling watering hole for patrons and performers alike. Dorothy is owned and operated by Zoe Schor and Whitney LaMora.

Dorothy is a prominent venue for lesbian, sapphic, and queer performance across genres and formats. Since starting operations, Dorothy has hosted open mics, live music, cabaret performances, drag shows, stand up comedy, theater performances, tarot readings, mixers, singles nights, and many other events. The versatility and inclusiveness of the space has solidified Dorothy not just as a hotspot for smaller-name performers, but a meaningful hub for the queer community's creative expression.

The bar's name is a reference to the famous queer moniker "a friend of Dorothy," a euphemism that the community used in the mid-twentieth century to identify one another when being out was dangerous.

From "'We're queer all year': Nobody's Darling, Dorothy, Whiskey Girl Tavern: new spaces for queer women," written by Kayleigh Padar for Windy City Times, June 15, 2023:

"Zoe Schor, who first opened Dorothy in February 2020, also started her business with the intention of designing a space she’d enjoy and that was reminiscent of the lesbian spaces she grew up in. Dorothy closed within four weeks due to the pandemic, but reopened last summer with the help of Schor’s co-owner and life partner Whitney LaMora.

Schor said she 'was really moved by' T’s, a bar in Andersonville that closed in 2013, where Schor and her friends could relax with cheap beers, a game of pool and a jukebox.

'I was really bummed when T’s closed, and I just got the feeling that it was time to open a lesbian bar,' Schor said. 'I’ve always been very interested in spaces that were specifically for queer women.'

Schor also felt an urgency to 'invest' in creating spaces for the queer community, after learning that lesbian bars across the country were disappearing. In 1980, there were 200 lesbian bars throughout the country but now there are only 27, according to the Lesbian Bar Project.

'There’s not always access to capital and funding for people who are marginalized,' Schor said. 'To have this opportunity, where there were investors who were excited to invest in a lesbian bar, landlords who were excited to have this bar in their basement and so on, it just felt like something we really owed to our community.'"