☞ EAT: Gay-Friendly FDB with Harlem Food Bar?

The permits have been up at 2100 FDB/8th Avenue for a while now but a new sign announcing the arrival of the Harlem Food Bar indicates that this might be the avenue's first gay-friendly establishment. It appears that the proprietors of the Harlem Food Bar were the original founders of New York's first gay coffee shop in the mid 90s call Big Cup which was on 8th Avenue in Chelsea.  Then there was the popular gay bar in the meatpacking district called Hell, which was at that downtown location way before the high-end shops and restaurants arrived a decade ago. Not mentioned on the poster was the original Food Bar which was a very popular gay eatery in Chelsea from the same time period that the other venues were open. Those establishments all closed down a few years back once each neighborhood became popular and the businesses probably could not afford to remain open.  The one thing they all have in common was that they set the scene up for the next trendy gay neighborhood in town before those areas became fashionable.

There has been a northward exodus of the gay community in Manhattan starting from the West Village, then to Chelsea and more recently to Hell's Kitchen.  Each neighborhood jump was probably driven by the need for more affordable rents but now all three are pretty costly to live in. The next stop north would be the Upper West Side but that is already prime real estate and quite expensive.  So the only conclusion we can make here is that Harlem might just be the next affordable gay nabe to pop up in Manhattan since there really isn't anywhere else to go but uptown.