19 Bar, Minneapolis

About 19 Bar

The 19 Bar opened near Loring Park in 1952, which makes it the oldest gay bar in Minneapolis and one of the oldest in the country. It has been LGBTQ-owned since life partners Everett Stoltz and George Koch took it over that year, in a building that started out as a 1922 laundry. The Star Tribune once named it the city's best old-school gay bar, and the label fits: a cash-only dive with a jukebox, pool tables, and dart boards, where everyone gets treated like a regular. In March 2024 a garbage truck knocked a power pole into the building and the resulting fire gutted it. The neighborhood rallied, longtime owner Gary Hallberg rebuilt, and the 19 reopened in February 2025 — same unpretentious room, same role as the quiet, low-key counterweight to Hennepin's bigger clubs. Soon after, Hallberg handed the bar to longtime manager Craig Wilson, who now owns and runs it, keeping the place in community hands.