SEATTLE IS MOURNING SHELLEY BROTHERS, CO-OWNER OF THE CITY’S ONLY LESBIAN BAR

The local LGBTQ community was dealt a devastating blow this week when it was announced that Shelley Brothers, co-owner of Seattle’s sole lesbian bar, Wildrose, died unexpectedly surrounded by loved ones on Sunday evening at age 67.

“It is with profound sadness that the Wildrose family shares the passing of our beloved Shelley, long-term family, friend, and co-owner of the Rose,” the bar wrote on social media. “She gave her life to this bar, ensuring that it remained a safe, welcoming space for generations of queer people to gather, celebrate, and find communion.”

“A pillar of Seattle’s LGBTQIA+ community, Shelley was a force. An icon. And a protector. Her impact is immeasurable, and her absence leaves a void that can never truly be filled. But her love, her kindness, and her unwavering commitment to this community will live on,” the post continued.

Opened on New Year’s Eve, 1984, Wildrose is the longest-running lesbian bar on the West Coast and one of the oldest in the country. (According to the Lesbian Bar Project, there are now only 34 bars in the U.S. catering to gay and queer women.) News of Brothers’s death is especially sobering to the local queer and lesbian community who have flocked to Wildrose for countless DJ nights, karaoke nights, and drag shows, or just to catch up with friends.

Brothers and her business partner Martha Manning took over the helms of Wildrose from Bryher Herak, one of the five original owners, in 2003. Brothers could often be found working the door on Pike Street in Capitol Hill, getting caught up in conversation with patrons and neighbors.

“She was always at the door, always talking to people. The mayor of Seattle out there,” Manning told the Seattle Times. “She knew all of the dog’s names in the neighborhood and even some of their owner’s names.”

Born in East Rochester, New York, in 1957, Brothers lived in California and Carson City, Nevada, before settling in Seattle in 1992. According to the Times, on her first visit to Wildrose she got kicked out of the bar for ordering a keoke coffee, a complicated drink containing coffee, Kahlua, brandy, and creme de cacao. At the time, Wildrose only sold beer — it was licensed as a “tavern” under state law and so could not sell liquor.

“I said, I don’t understand what a tavern is, I don’t know the liquor laws in Washington yet,” Brothers told the Times. “And they said, ‘Get out!,’ so I left.” After returning the following evening, “no one even acted like they threw me out.”

With a background in sound engineering for live events, Brothers began doing sound at the Rose, among other odd jobs. According to the Times, Brothers was the one sure that the TVs were connected when Ellen Degeneres came out on her self-titled sitcom in 1997.

Brothers was proud of the community she fostered with Wildrose. Celebrities who have come through the doors into the welcoming garnet-red walls of the bar include musicians Brandi Carlisle and Mary Lambert and athletes like Britney Griner and Megan Rapinoe. BenDeLaCreme, the fan-favorite contestant from season six of RuPaul’s Drag Race, previously bartended alongside Brothers at Wildrose before appearing on the show.

As the city has changed over time, so has the LGBTQ scene and the bar’s clientele.

“It’s a more diverse crowd now than it was historically, and that’s important to us,” Brothers once told Visit Seattle. “Everyone is welcome as long as they’re supportive of one another. It’s important that this be a safe space for our community, but that community is diverse.”

Tributes to Brothers came pouring in all over social media with the news of her passing. An old named patron Jennifer Vandever said on Facebook, “I haven’t been in the Rose in a minute, but I still remember sitting and chatting with Shelley when I’d be in town from fishing and no one else was in the bar. She’d always treat me like an old friend no matter how long it had been.”

Wildrose is holding a celebration of Shelley Brothers’s life on Sunday, February 16, from 2 to 9 p.m. The bar encourages anyone with photos or memories that they would like to be included in the celebration to email [email protected].

2025-02-07T23:01:30Z