USA Today yesterday named Femme Bar in Worcester, Massachusetts to its annual list of the best bars of the year in the country.
“We’re super proud that we are a space so many people feel safe in,” says co-owner Danielle Spring. “It’s crazy to create a space that’s so much more than a bar with great food — it’s a community that offers so many people a place to be their best true selves.”
Reports the Worcester Telegram & Gazette:
Since its opening in early 2023, Femme Bar, on Green Street in Worcester, has held an uncommon spotlight as one of the United States’ vanishingly few lesbian bars, a number that consistently hovers around 30 nationwide these days.
Co-owners and married couple Danielle Spring and Julie Toupin Spring have taken a small space and filled it to bursting with parties, drinks, food, and connection, and now, there’s more to celebrate.
On July 29, USA Today named Femme Bar among its 2026 Bars of the Year, one of the top 38 places to drink in America. Food writers across the country nominated bars that excited them, bars they would recommend to friends and family, bars they’d return to again and again.
“We’re super proud that we are a space so many people feel safe in,” says Spring. “It’s crazy to create a space that’s so much more than a bar with great food, it’s a community that offers so many people a place to be their best true selves. We are proud to have been accepted in the queer community but also into the nationally exclusive club of being a lesbian bar.”
Femme has quickly carved out a niche within Worcester with a strong food and drink menu and a distinct aesthetic, but its significance, both locally and nationally, is greater than that.
According to documentary series the Lesbian Bar Project, the number of lesbian bars throughout the United States in spring 2026 stood at only 36, three of which are in Massachusetts.
All of those three have opened since the COVID-19 pandemic in response to a resurgence of interest within the LGBTQ community in lesbian bars, of which there were once an estimated 200 nationwide in the 1980s. (In contrast, there are currently more than 1,000 bars throughout the country catering mainly to gay men.)
Of Massachusetts’ three current lesbian bars, Femme Bar was the first, opening in March 2023. The other two, Dani’s Queer Bar in Boston and Last Ditch in Greenfield, both opened their doors in early 2025.
Read the complete Telegram & Gazette story here.
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