It’s Lipstick Day in East Nashville. Rep. Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville) on Wednesday read a proclamation to make it official.
The proclamation preceded the groundbreaking for a sister business for The Lipstick Lounge, a sports bar called Chapstick.
Lipstick Lounge owners Christa Suppan and Jonda Valentine did not divulge many details about the future space, for which Bluegrass Building Group will serve as contractor.
Chapstick will offer 1,500 square feet and a patio addition to the 1400 Woodland St. site, which currently houses the 22-year-old Lipstick Lounge and an upstairs cigar lounge called The Upper Lip. The pair hopes to see construction completed in the next nine months, making an opening slated for early 2025.
The future bar's televisions will show a “mix of all sports just like the [mix of people] we have as patrons,” spokesperson Brian Sullivan told the Scene's sister publication the Nashville Post.
“Jonda and I have imagined Chapstick for years and years, and to see it all come to fruition today is an absolute dream,” said Suppan. “When we opened in 2002, our main goal was to have a safe space, and a space where people could come in and be their authentic selves and gather together and find community. Our hope is that Chapstick is an expansion of that.”
In the proclamation, Behn thanked the bar, which markets itself as “a bar for humans,” for its fundraising for those living with HIV/AIDS and its sponsorship of LGBTQ and allied sports leagues. She said The Lipstick Lounge was one of the first bars in the area to provide all-gender restrooms and kept drag performances with heightened security while the state attempted to ban them.
Former Mayor Megan Barry, on campaign for Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District seat, also spoke at the event, expressing support for the expansion.
Located near the border of Lockeland Springs and East End, The Lipstick Lounge is one of only 32 open and operating lesbian bars in the United States registered with the Lesbian Bar Project, and the only lesbian-owned and -operated bar in Tennessee, according to a press release. Mayor Freddie O’Connell referenced the scarcity of such bars during Wednesday's event.
“Just a couple of years ago, we were celebrating 20 years of The Lipstick Lounge at a time when a headline for people paying attention was that lesbian bars around the country were closing,” O’Connell told attendees. “What a day, two years later, to not just have Lipstick itself continuing to thrive, but to break ground on an expansion.”
This article originally appeared in the Scene's sister publication, the Nashville Post.
