The owners of PRIDE Bar x Lounge are pushing back hard after images of the unfinished gay bar in Hell’s Kitchen spread across social media this fall. Paul Fogarty and Andy Karlic say the project is exactly what they have described from the start: an out-and-proud gay bar in New York City, not an AI fantasy or a hedge-fund vanity play.
The backlash arrived before the doors even opened. Critics mocked the space online, with one person calling it a “looney tunes trap for gay people,” another saying it looked like it could become a Chipotle by next week, and a third saying PRIDE gave off “How do you do fellow gays?” energy. The comments turned PRIDE Bar x Lounge into a shorthand for a wider fight over what a modern gay bar should look like, and who gets to decide whether it feels real.
Fogarty and Karlic said they began renovating the space in August 2025 in the building that once housed Boxer’s, and that they had spent just under $5 million on the project. Fogarty said none of that money came from hedge funds. He also said AI was not used to design the building, even as online criticism kept circling the project’s appearance and the possibility that the owners were straight or backed by private equity.
The one place AI did enter the project was narrower than the online criticism suggested. Fogarty said a company he contracted used AI to create a promotional poster, not the bar itself. That poster promotes club vibes and alternating drag performances, a much smaller use of the technology than the claims that triggered the backlash.
Fogarty and Karlic’s answer is blunt, and it is also the point of the project. Fogarty said, “It’s an out and proud gay bar,” and added, “There’s a dream to be had, and I’m having it here.” Karlic, who identifies as bi, stood beside that defense as the pair tried to draw a line between viral ridicule and the reality of what they are building.
The timing matters because PRIDE Bar x Lounge is still not open, even though it was originally slated for a Pride 2026 opening. That has left the bar suspended in an awkward place: visible enough to become a social-media target, unfinished enough to invite speculation, and real enough to force its owners to defend not just the design but the identity of the business itself.
The dispute lands against a shrinking backdrop for gay nightlife. At least 23 gay bars have closed in the U.S. this year, a reminder that the argument over PRIDE is not only about aesthetics or branding. It is also about whether a new bar in Hell’s Kitchen can survive long enough to become what its owners say it already is.
