Bar Tab is a recurring column in The Post and Courier Food section that highlights a locally made or sold adult beverage. North Charleston's new LGBTQ+ bar is a dimly lit speakeasy behind Macho Pichu Chicken, next to Rebel Taqueria and just down the street from We Are Family 's Closet Case thrift store and the Alliance for Full Acceptance and Charleston Pride's office along Reynolds Avenue. When you walk around back, you'll wander up to an outdoor patio with lounge seating and dangling string lights.
Enter the glass doors and push past a black curtain entryway straight up to the bar. It's Bar Polari . Speakeasy-inspired bar for the LGBTQ+ community opens in North Charleston A neon sign for Bar Polari hangs on a wall beside the counter, Thursday, Sept.
5, 2024, in North Charleston. Inside, a neon sign with the bar's logo — a mustached pair of red lips with its mouth open — glows on the back wall, while black booths line the rest of the room. It may take a minute for your eyes to adjust to the darkness, but once you do, you'll see the framed art on the walls, mostly depicting LGBTQ+ couples, along with some of the only lighting in the small space that can hold around 50 guests.
Other than Dudley's On Ann in downtown Charleston, Bar Polari is one of the few designated LGBTQ+ bars in the Lowcountry, and it's vastly different than its counterpart with a laid-back lounge feeling. It was named after a form of slang that evolved into a kind of secret language used by marginalized.