District of Columbia
Spark Social House: D.C.’s first non-alcoholic LGBTQ bar debuts
New LGBTQ ‘bar’ is redefining sober nightlife looks on 14th and U Streets
The intersection of 14th and U Streets has become a focal point of Washington’s growing LGBTQ presence.
As the city’s LGBTQ population has steadily increased, the intersection has reflected this shift. Since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has emerged as one of the gayest corners in D.C.
The transformation accelerated with the opening of Bunker, an LGBTQ dance bar that fulfilled the longtime wish of many queer Washingtonians for a new gay dance club after the city lost two beloved venues — Town Danceboutique and Cobalt — before the pandemic. Since then, the corner has only grown more queer.
Three other LGBTQ bars have opened at the intersection of 14th and U since Bunker debuted in 2023: Crush Dance Bar, District Eagle, and, most recently, Spark Social House. Each of these venues offers a distinct environment for Washington’s LGBTQ community to socialize and connect. However, the newest addition to the corner is taking a different approach by removing one key element that ties the others together: Spark is an alcohol-free bar.
Nick Tsusaki, founder of Spark Social House, sat down with the Washington Blade to discuss what sets Spark apart from other LGBTQ spaces in the city, and how his experience working in LGBTQ nightlife has set him up for success.
“I had been bartending at some of these other [gay] bars when I decided, ‘Oh, maybe I could open one too and this could be my whole life,’” Tsusaki said. “I didn’t want to compete against my friends. I tried to think about it, and I noticed alcohol isn’t really me. So I was like, ‘Okay, well, what can I bring to the table that’s filling a gap? And that’s not taking any business from right next door, Crush?’ Those are my friends. And so the way I thought about it was ‘What’s missing in D.C.?’ And it was when I realized ‘Oh, we don’t really have a daytime place to hang out.’
Spark Social House, created by Tsusaki and Shua Goodwin, is Washington’s first LGBTQ alcohol-free bar.
By day, the staff serves coffee and tea, creating a cozy café atmosphere where you can work ‘from home.’ By night, the space transforms into a vibrant sober party spot — complete with DJs, dancing, and an emphasis on expertly crafted mocktails.
“It took us a really long time to figure out what to call it, because there really isn’t another kind of space like this,” Tsusaki said. “That’s why we just ended up going with house. I want you to feel like you’re coming over to our house for a hang out.”
One of the major reasons the pair decided not to include alcohol in Spark was because of Tsusaki’s personal experiences with alcohol when he was younger.
“I myself don’t really drink that much,” Tsusaki said. “Basically, because I’m Asian, I get Asian glow,” he continued, laughing. “I tried so hard in college to fit in. I remember on my 21st birthday I was supposed to go to Town and have fun with all my friends. So I drank and then fell asleep on the couch because my body just doesn’t process alcohol well.”
His lack of a relationship with alcohol only grew after he began working.
“Then for the next eight years of my life, I was almost involuntarily sober because I was in the military. I couldn’t do drugs, and my body couldn’t tolerate alcohol. I just had to figure out how to have fun without that. And then my ex boyfriend, who is part of the Spark team, is sober. That’s really when I realized, like, ‘This is a huge community that isn’t coming out.’”
People choose sobriety for many reasons; whether to prioritize their health, save money, or simply prefer an alcohol-free lifestyle. Ultimately, it’s a personal decision. One reason that LGBTQ individuals may choose to become sober is because they are more likely to engage with alcohol abuse than their straight counterparts. Alcohol abuse within the LGBTQ community may be as high as 25 percent, compared to 5–10 percent in the general population, according to recent research conducted by the American Addition Center.
“One statistic that I found when I was doing my market research for this was that 38% of American adults don’t drink alcohol for whatever reason,” Tsusaki said. “Having bartended at four bars now around the city, Dacha, Dirty Goose, Shakers, and Crush next door, we would always get asked, ‘Oh, do you have any mocktails?’ And there was always a twang or tinge of shame when people would ask for that.”
Tsusaki hopes that by creating a space dedicated to queer nightlife without alcohol, he can help shift the culture — making it easier for people to embrace sober socializing without shame.
“It’s [LGBTQ nightlife] very difficult for somebody who’s sober. I was always so impressed with how he [my ex] navigated it. Being sober in these spaces can be difficult when you don’t have a buzz going on. And so I figured there’s a lot of people that like that. Alcohol is not a requirement for hanging out with your friends. I don’t have alcohol in my house, so when they come over we just make tea and we hang out and chat. That’s kind of the vibe.”
Another group that is now invited to take space in Spark that had not been given the opportunity to in the past is younger members of the LGBTQ community.
“What’s really cool about being non alcoholic is that we now can have anybody come in,” Tsusaki said. “We’re gonna be 18 and up after 9 p.m. but during the day we’ll be in a space where any queer person under 21, any college student, can come and experience being in a queer space. Anyone under 21 previously didn’t really have access to a queer space. We know that the highest risk of suicide is in LGBTQ youth, from 10 to 14. For me, when I went to Town for the first time when I was 18, that was the first time that I was like, ‘Oh, being gay could actually be cool. Like, this is actually kind of cool. This could be a really fun life.’ I’m excited that other people might be able to have that moment earlier in their life.”
David Draper was one of the invited guests to Spark’s soft opening on March 7. While sipping “The Wanda, Not Cosmo” in the sitting room past the bar he told the Blade this is a needed space in Washington’s LGBTQ scene.
“I’m friends with Shua and Nick, and I was grateful to be invited,” Draper said. “I’m also on a new sobriety journey within the last year, and excited. I wanted to support my friends, but also wanted to see this space. Just because you start a sobriety journey doesn’t mean you stop liking to go out. I still enjoy going out, and I am just excited to have a unique space like this.”
The space, Draper went on to explain, will help provide a space for members of the LGBTQ community who had been left to the side of an alcohol-centered culture.
“It makes me feel great. I think a lot of people are looking for options when they’re going out,” he said. “And I think the traditional gay bar is important, and an important part of gay culture and gay life, but I think there’s somewhat of a culture shift, as people have started abstaining from alcohol and other substances. So I think it’s cool to have a space like this”
Jerry Krusinski was sitting across from Draper, sipping on another signature mocktail, the “Jalapeño Business” that uses zero proof tequila.
“I’m pretty newly sober — like just over a month, and so I’m still just kind of exploring what that life means,” Krusinski said. “It’s been really surprising to me how much is actually out there. When you’re not in the sober community, you don’t really see it that much. It’s kind of comforting to see that the world has really kind of embraced it a lot more than I feel like its used to. It leaves me excited for the future.”
Spark Social House is located at 2009 14th St., N.W, and opens daily at 8 a.m. It closes at 10 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, 11 p.m. on Thursday and Sunday, and midnight on Friday and Saturday. For more information visit their website at https://spark-dc.com/ or their Instagram @sparksocialdc.
District of Columbia
Gay priest credited with boosting church support for LGBTQ Catholics
Fr. Tom Oddo’s biographer speaks at Dignity Washington event
The author of a biography of a U.S. Catholic priest said to have advocated for support by the Catholic Church of gay Catholics in the early 1970s has called Father Thomas ‘Tom’ Oddo a little known but important figure in the LGBTQ rights movement.
Tyler Bieber, author of the recently published book “Against The Current: Father Tom Oddo And the New American Catholic,” told of Oddo’s life and work on behalf of LGBTQ rights at a March 22 talk before the local LGBTQ Catholic group Dignity Washington.
Among Oddo’s important accomplishments, Bieber said, was his role as a co-founder of the national LGBTQ Catholic group Dignity U.S.A. in 1973 at the age of 29.
But as reported in the prologue of his book, Bieber presented details of the sad news that Oddo died in a fatal car crash in 1989 at the age of 45 in Portland, Ore., where he was serving as the highly acclaimed president of the University of Portland, a Catholic institution.
“He was a major figure in the gay rights movement in the 1970s, an unsung hero of that movement,” Bieber told Dignity Washington members, who assembled for his talk in a meeting room at St. Margaret Episcopal Church near Dupont Circle, where they attend their weekly Catholic mass on Sundays.
“And Dignity U.S.A. saw intense growth in membership and visibility” during its early years under Oddo’s leadership, Bieber said. “The story of Father Tom and his contemporaries is a story largely untold in the history of the gay rights movement, but one worth knowing and considering,” he said.
As stated in his book, Bieber told the Dignity Washington gathering Oddo was born and raised in a Catholic family on Long Island, N.Y., and attended a Catholic high school in Flushing Queens. It was at that time when he developed an interest in becoming a priest, according to Bieber.
After studying at the University of Notre Dame and completing his religious studies he was ordained as a priest in 1970 and began his work as a priest in the Boston area, Bieber said. It was around that time, Bieber told the Dignity Washington audience, that gay Catholics approached Oddo to seek advice on how they should interact with the Catholic Church. It was also around that time that Oddo became involved in a group supportive of then gay Catholics that later became a Dignity chapter in Boston.
In a development considered unusual for a Catholic priest, Bieber said Oddo in 1973 testified in support of gay rights bill before a committee of the Massachusetts Legislature and collaborated with then Massachusetts gay and lesbian rights advocate Elaine Noble.
In 1982, at the age of 39, Oddo was selected as president of the University of Portland following several years as a college teacher in the Boston area, Bieber’s book states. It says he was seen as a “vibrant and capable administrator who delivered real results to his campus,” adding, “His magnetism was obvious. One student described him as ‘John Kennedyesque’ to the university’s student newspaper.”
Bieber said that although Oddo was less active with Dignity U.S.A. during his tenure as UP president, he continued his support for gay Catholics and what is now referred to as LGBTQ rights.
“For those that knew him prior to his term at UP, though, he represented something greater than an accomplished university administrator and educator,” Bieber’s book states. “He was a new kind of priest, a gay man living and ministering in a world set loose from tradition by the Second Vatican Council,” the book says.
It was referring to the Vatican gathering of worldwide Catholic leaders from 1962 to 1965 concluding under Pope Paul VI that church observers say modernized church practices to allow far greater participation by the laity and opened the way for sympathetic consideration of gay Catholics.
District of Columbia
HRC to host National Rainbow Seder
Bet Mishpachah among annual event’s organizers
The 18th National Rainbow Seder will take place at the Human Rights Campaign on Sunday.
The sold out event is the country’s largest Passover Seder for the Jewish LGBTQ community.
Organizations behind the event include Bet Mishpachah, a local D.C. LGBTQ synagogue that Rabbi Jake Singer-Beilin leads, and GLOE, an Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center program that sponsors events for the queer Jewish community. The theme for this year’s Seder is “Liberation For All Who Journey: Remembering, Resisting, Rebuilding.” Rabbis Atara Cohen, Koach Frazier, and Avigayil Halpern will lead it.
The Seder will honor the late GLOE co-chair Michael Singer. Singer also served on the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center’s board.
“This Seder is both a celebration of how far we have come and a call to continue building a more just and inclusive world.” Bet Mishpachah Executive Director Joshua Maxey told the Washington Blade.
District of Columbia
Trans Day of Visibility events planned
Rally on the National Mall scheduled for Saturday
The Christopher Street Project has a number of events planned for the 2026 Trans Day of Visibility, including a rally on the Mall and an “Empowerment Ball” at the Eaton Hotel. Plenaries, panel discussions and meetings with members of Congress are scheduled in the three days of programming.
Announced speakers include N.H. state Rep. Alice Wade; Commissioner of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago Precious Brady-Davis; activist and performer Miss Peppermint (“RuPaul’s Drag Race”); Lexington, Ky. Councilwoman Emma Curtis; Rabbi Abby Stein; D.C. activist and host Rayceen Pendarvis; Air Force Master Sgt. Logan Ireland; among other leaders, advocates and performers.
Conference programming on Thursday and Friday includes an educational forum and a Capitol Hill policy education day. Registration for the two-day conference has closed.
The “Trans Day of Visibility PAC Reception” is scheduled for Thursday, March 26 from 7:30-9 p.m. at As You Are (500 8th St., S.E.). Special guests include Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nevada) and Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.). Tickets are available at christopherstreetproject.org starting at $25.
The National Council of Jewish Women and the Christopher Street Project host a “Trans Day of Visibility Shabbat” on Friday, March 27 from 7-8 p.m. at Sixth & I (600 I St., N.W.). The service is to be led by Rabbi Jenna Shaw and Rabbi Abby Stein.
The “Now You See Me: Trans Empowerment Social & Ball” is scheduled for Friday, March 27 from 6-11 p.m. at the Eaton Hotel (1201 K. St., N.W.). The trans-themed drag ball is hosted by the Marsha P. Johnson Institute with support from the D.C. Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs, the Capital Ballroom Council, the Christopher Street Project, the Center for Black Equity, Generation for Common Good, and Parenting is Political. RSVP online at christopherstreetproject.org.
The National Transgender Day of Visibility Rally is scheduled for Saturday, March 28 on the National Mall at 11 a.m. The rally will include speakers and performances. Following the rally, attendees are encouraged to participate in the “No Kings” rally being held at Anacostia Park.
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