December 29, 2015 in Press,
MAKE THE SPICY COCKTAIL FROM THE CELEB-FAVORITE BAR KNOWN AS THE COYOTE UGLY FOR MEN
The Flaming Saddles saloon has hosted many celebrity patrons, most recently Miranda Lambert–whose music provided the soundtrack for the night she visited.
Owned by former Coyote Ugly choreographer Jacqui Squatriglia, the Flaming Saddles is a country western bar with locations in New York and West Hollywood. It’s been called the male version Coyote Ugly because the male bartenders “do-si-do on the bar top.”
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October 12, 2013 in News, Press,
FLAMING SADDLES NYC NAMED ONE OF 10 BEST GAY BAR IN NYC
LET YOUR PRIDE FLAG FLY: 10 BEST NYC GAY BARS THAT PUT THE ‘NIGHT’ INTO NIGHTLIFE
by Isaiah Cruz
on October 10, 2015
New York City has some of the most unique and colorful spots in its eclectic nightlife culture.
This is no truer than with the NYC gay bar scene, which attracts locals, soon-to-be honorary New Yorkers and tourists alike.
3. Flaming Saddles Saloon (793 Ninth Avenue)
Who says New York doesn’t know how to get a little country? Step into the knee-slappin’ Flaming Saddles and find out! A posh, Southern décor highlights a high-tech jukebox so that patrons can choose the tunes they drink to, which is usually playing the likes of Reba, Dolly Parton or Brad Paisley.
Be sure to also try their signature Frito Pie, Frito Corn Chips topped with their own homemade all-beef Texas Chili, cheese, sour cream, jalapeño, chopped white onions and spicy brown mustard.
The cowboy boots that the strapping bartenders wear aren’t just for show, as they sporadically jump up on the wooden bar and do a choreographed number to a beloved country song. One of their favorites? “Wild, Wild West.”
See the whole article here
October 4, 2013 in News, Press,
WHERE COWBOYS ROAM
A Gay Bar That’s Part Coyote Ugly, Part Reality TV Fodder
By JAMES BARRON
This sounds like the premise for a sitcom or a reality TV show: A straight couple opens a gay bar.
She favors off-the-shoulder tops and stiletto heels; he wears leather jackets and rides a Harley. The place — improbably for Manhattan — is a country-western joint where the staff climbs on the bar and performs dance numbers.
“It’s high drama and high energy for sure,” declared Kris Coughlin, a bartender there.
The bar, Flaming Saddles, at 793 Ninth Avenue, near 53rd Street, opened in 2011. The actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson and the television personality Anderson Cooper bantered about it on Mr. Cooper’s daytime talk show. And New York magazine, which named it the Best Gay Bar in New York City last year, said the bartenders “do-si-do on the bar top like an all-male version of Coyote Ugly.”
There is a reason to mention Flaming Saddles in the same breath as Coyote Ugly, the raucous First Avenue saloon where female bartenders dance on the bar. Jacqui Squatriglia, 48, who choreographed the moves at Coyote Ugly, does the same at Flaming Saddles, where she is an owner.
Now she and her business partner and boyfriend, Chris Barnes, 54, say they are on their way to opening gay country-western bars in other cities.
Mr. Barnes, a songwriter and actor who appeared on “Seinfeld,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “30 Rock,” is also working on a musical about Flaming Saddles. And, indeed, a reality-television producer has been pitching a series that would focus not only on the bar and its customers, but also on Ms. Squatriglia, Mr. Barnes and their relationship. They have two therapists on call around the clock.
This is no shot-and-a-beer joint. The top-selling drink at Flaming Saddles is vodka and seltzer. (Amid calls for a boycott of Stolichnaya to protest attacks on gay people in Russia and antigay legislation backed by President Vladimir V. Putin, Flaming Saddles changed its “midnight Stoli hour” to a “midnight Absolut hour,” with the same $8-a-drink price.)
The jukebox has John Denver’s “Country Boy” and Will Smith’s “Wild, Wild West.” The room is a homage to a frontier-town saloon, or perhaps to the set of “Annie Get Your Gun”: comfortably dark, even in the daytime, with bordello-red drapes, velvety patterned wallpaper, wide-plank floors and an old-fashioned pressed-metal ceiling.
And there is a down-home sensibility rooted in a kind of nostalgia for places where the cowboys are real: The couple estimates that 60 percent of Flaming Saddles’ customers grew up in Oklahoma, Texas or Tennessee (even if, Mr. Barnes said, many headed for New York because they were uncomfortable acknowledging their sexuality there).
“There was not a gay bar in Hell’s Kitchen for me,” said one regular, Brianne Demmler, who went there with her girlfriend on the day they became engaged last year. “I can walk into Hardware, and they’re cold. I can walk into Barrage, and they’re so busy. I can walk into Boxers, and it’s too loud. You walk in here, and even when there are 200 people in here, somebody behind the bar makes eye contact to acknowledge you’re here.”
Steven McWilliams started out stocking liquor and doing behind-the-scenes chores. Now he is serving up drinks and is part of the troupe dancing on the bar. “You know, gay bars for the most part thrive on sexual energy,” Mr. McWilliams said. “That’s how they keep people coming back, the whole idea of finding someone to go home with or flirting with a sexy bartender. I’m sure people enjoy flirting with us, and they like watching us dance on the bar, but we keep all of our clothes on and we’re not gyrating in people’s faces.”
Nor are they performing the ballet “Rodeo” just inches away from patrons. People pull out their cellphones and make videos as the bartenders jump and pivot; the dance captain, Dane Sorensen, likes to add cartwheels and splits. But the staff is under orders from Ms. Squatriglia not to let things get too suggestive.
“Our style is not raunchy,” she said. “Not to say that’s not good at other places; it’s just not what we set out to do.”
They may be long on energy, but they are short on space. The bar, only 32 inches wide, is a runway of possible hazards. As dancers, the bartenders must sidestep customers’ drinks, not to mention elbows. Ms. Squatriglia eliminated one potential problem in the beginning. She put in a flat bar top, replacing one that had an ornamental lip that could be tripped over, and she insisted that it be made of harder wood. “No divots from when they pound their heels,” she said.
The reaction from the crowd? “It’s a fun experience,” said Roger Welch, a theater director who discovered the bar when it opened. “Everyone’s excited. It’s country line dancing. I think for that style, they do quite well.”
Customers are not allowed to jump up and dance along. “We point to the sign,” Mr. Barnes said. It is over the bar and says, “No woohooing.” He said it was there mainly to keep out straight women’s bachelorette parties.
Flaming Saddles was Ms. Squatriglia’s idea. She and Mr. Barnes met in 2009, when he had a part in the film “Good Day for It,” an independent movie shot in rural Pennsylvania, and she was an executive producer. After what Mr. Barnes described as “the usual on-set romance,” they moved to Manhattan together and had one of those serious couples talks.
“I said, ‘Do you want to get married and have kids, or do you want to have fun?’ ” he recalled. “She said, ‘Have fun.’ I said, ‘What are we going to do?’ She said, ‘I want to open a gay country-western bar.’ I was trying to be spontaneous and comedic, so I said, ‘As long as we call it “Flaming Saddles,” I’m in.’ Then I said, ‘Not that it matters, but why?’ ” She said that at Coyote Ugly, she would work out a routine, only to say to herself, “I wish that was boys.”
She had definite ideas for Flaming Saddles — “I had opened 25 other bars,” she said. “I knew what I wanted.” — and Ms. Squatriglia and Mr. Barnes rejected advice they got as they prepared to open.
“We have a lot of gay friends we consulted with,” Mr. Barnes said. “They said, ‘Topless on the bar.’ Jacqui said, ‘I don’t think so.’ They said, ‘You have to have a D.J.’ Jacqui said, ‘I don’t think so.’ They said, ‘You can’t use a jukebox in a gay bar.’ Jacqui said, ‘I think so.’ We said: ‘You know what? Let’s just open a saloon we’d like to walk into regardless of sexuality.’ ”
The timing turned out to be good. Older gay bars have closed since Flaming Saddles opened. Rawhide, a stalwart on Eighth Avenue and 21st Street for 34 years, shut in March. Splash, on West 17th Street in Chelsea, closed in August after 22 years. “There’s something in the air about this that at this particular moment makes perfect sense,” said Marvin Taylor, director of the Fales Library at New York University and an expert on the history of bars and restaurants.
So does the location, he said: “They put it in the center of where the gay community is, in Hell’s Kitchen, because Chelsea has completely disappeared.”
Mr. Barnes said owning a gay bar had been something of a consciousness-raising experience. “As a straight man, I didn’t realize the bashing” gay men took, he said.
“We’d see Midtown West yuppie couples” walking by when the bar was under construction, Mr. Barnes continued. “They’d go, ‘I hope it’s not another gay bar.’ I’d say, ‘Excuse me?’ I had never felt it was my fight, but once we put our brand up, it was. And then I looked at Sean Penn’s portrayal of Harvey Milk” — the gay city supervisor in San Francisco who was shot to death in 1978 — “and realized, it’s a civil rights issue. What’s that …”
His voice trailed off, but Ms. Squatriglia finished the sentence with the word “Stonewall,” meaning the Stonewall Inn, the West Village bar known as the birthplace of the modern gay rights movement.
“It was owned by a straight family, too,” he said. “They happened to be a crime family” — the owner was reputed to be a frontman for a Genovese crime capo known as “Matty the Horse” — “but they were straight.”
June 29, 2013 in Press,
GOVERNOR CUOMO ANNOUNCES NEW “I LOVE NY LGBT” WEBSITE
By STACEY DELIKAT, Fox 5 News Reporter
NEW YORK (MYFOXNY) –
Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a new “I Love NY LGBT” tourism website on Saturday as lesbian and gay New Yorkers celebrated gay pride weekend.
The state has started a new tourism campaign designed to attract Gay and Lesbian travelers.
Already a huge week for LGBT community and businesses who serve them so the launch of this new website is just an added bonus.
In honor of pride week the boys of Flaming Saddles Saloon are showing off their new line dance.
The bar in Hell’s Kitchen is among those featured on New York States freshly launched “I love New York LGBT” website in what Governor Cuomo is calling a one-stop portal into all the state has to offer to LGBT tourists.
Flaming Saddles is already well known in the local LGBT community but bar owners Chris Barnes and Jacqui Squatriglia, a straight married couple, support the efforts to bring in more LGBT tourists.
The website is part of the state’s $60 million dollar tourism campaign. In addition to entertainment and historic landmarks, the site will spotlight LGBT events, resources and a wedding planning guide for same-sex couples who want to tie the knot here.
The website launched Saturday and will be promoted at Sunday’s Gay Pride Parade which of course is the culmination of the historic week.
PAGE SIX NY POST! April 11, 2013 in Press,
MOONGLOW RELEASE PARTY @ FLAMING SADDLES
April 9, 2013. Scottie Gage celebrated the release of his new single and music video
“Moonglow” at the Hell’s Kitchen gay country bar.
January 2, 2013 in News, Press,
HELL’S KITCHEN IS GAYER THAN EVER!
By Michael Musto Wednesday, Jan 2 2013
Hell’s Kitchen is actually heaven’s boudoir for gays these days. The queer ratio is so high there that if the person to the left of you is straight and the person to the right of you is, too, then you’re definitely gay.
Way back in the mid 2000s, I was nudging everyone that the gay energy was migrating north, as Chelsea became a little too fancy, expensive, and hetero for the younger gays. Hell’s Kitchen beckoned with its relatively cheap walk-ups, Thai noodle restaurants, and growing lounge-based nightlife. What’s more, it seemed relatively unvarnished—an off-limits work in progress whose malleability was extremely appealing to gays who like to be part of an urban aesthetics project.
Jump ahead, and HK is now the NYC neighborhood with the most gay bars—13, as opposed to seven in Chelsea.
But my two favorite HK spots are the ones that are so wrong they’re right up my alley. Flaming Saddles is a brightly lit country-western bar that attracts a surprising crowd of flamboyantly gay wannabe cowboys and cowpokes. The screens there seem to show The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas on continual repeat (with Dom DeLuise and Jim Nabors in prominent roles, it’s gayer than a sheriff in a gingham dress), and at odd moments, three short, frisky dancers perform a hoedown on top of the bar—uniquely amusing, even if it tends to interrupt drink service.
July 11, 2012 in Jacqui's Splash, News, Bandit Bartenders, Flaming Saddles Saloon, Press,
HAPPINESS AND PRIDE
I could not be happier…
We participated in the gay pride parade.I must say it was one of the most moving experiences of my life… To be a part of this parade was amazing and humbling
Chris and I,as well as all the boys were on our float. We had a white horse, bales of hay , and cowboy hats. It was a glorious sight… Chris DJ’d the whole route, getting the crowds going, and we had country music blaring… It was Flaming Saddles on wheels…. The crowd loved it, cheering, clapping and singing as we passed…
I want to thank our bandits ! Jonathan, Rambo, Kris, Steven, Russ, Dean, Vance, Gerald and Nate…They danced , hooted and hollered the whole way… Their excitement was contagious and their energy unsurpassed … Thank you..
We have just found out we are nominated for one of the 2012 NYC Pride March Awards…. Ceremony is July 26th…
We could not be more Happy Happy Happy and of course full of Pride!
April 5, 2012 in Jacqui's Splash, News, Flaming Saddles Saloon, Press,
SHORT AND TWEET…
So… Chris and I have begun tweeting. Yes we did…This world is pretty new to us both. I have tweeted for my last business, but it was few and far between. Tweeting now about my life and Flaming Saddles however has been quite addicting. I find myself taking lots of pictures and posting them… Now that’s fun. Handsome customers,handsome staff… Love it… I feel that a picture does say a thousand words…and perhaps tweeting speaks a thousand words as well… A single sentence can convey a whole entire story… A sound bite for all to read…
Fs_Jacqui
Fs_chrisbarnes
Follow if you like… It will be short and I hope always tweet!!!
April 5, 2012 in Jacqui's Splash, News, Flaming Saddles Saloon, Press,
REALITY… BRAVO!
Sonja from Bravo’s Real Housewives of NYC was in Flaming Saddles Tuesday night… I am a huge fan… She was accompanied by Mike and Josh from Million Dollar Listing…
Can we all say Bravo!!!
March 7, 2012 in Jacqui's Splash, News, Bandit Bartenders, Flaming Saddles Saloon, Press,
NEW YORK MAGAZINE BEST OF…
I would like to thank the academy…
New York magazines best of 2012 issue awarded
Flaming Saddles Saloon BEST GAY BAR in NYC…
After only four months of operations… can you believe it…I know…
I am flattered and humbled to say the least…
I am most happy about the magazine saying that we are committed to our sexy country style…
Indeed… We know our brand and stay close to it…
My dancers over the past 20 years have wanted to mix in different kinds of dance… hip hop is great,burlesque I love, but just not here. Although i encourage everyone to put their own signature “creativity” on the dance, i do not allow them to change my style…
I have seen brands dilute…It’s tough not too…
It takes discipline to stay true to your art…
And with that being said, I would like to thank our staff, the Flaming Saddles Bandits for honoring that…
This award is for you….
Trends and fads may come and go, but we will Boot Scootin Boogie till the cows come home…
And to “boot’das boot” we scored an “A” from the health department today…
Yippie ki yah Flaming Saddles!!!
Best Of…