“They’ve sort of made it a space of their own.” It’s like Columbus: ‘I’m going to colonize this space,’ or ‘I’m judging when you’re touching a guy or making out with a guy,’” Fischetti said. He doesn’t mind sharing the bar with straight patrons, but the number of them has gone up higher than he’d like. The last time he went to the upstairs dance floor was during the Democratic National Convention last July. “Woody’s,” Matt Fischetti said, “is a gay-themed straight bar.”įischetti, 31, last went a couple months ago. As one displeased patron put it in a public Facebook post, it’s “straight gentrification.” Friday and Saturday nights now feature straight people making out on the dance floor, men hanging out with their girlfriends, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” instead of Madonna and bachelorette party after bachelorette party after bachelorette party. Philly gays are saying that at some point in recent months or years the establishment began seeking too much to be an “it” club, drawing in large numbers of straight women who also brought straight men. Go to almost any other bar in the Gayborhood, and you’ll get near-universal agreement that Woody’s has changed.
