Dazzling on stage is harder after getting up at 7am to make coffees all day

Drag star Oskar Kirk Hansen on combining a stage career and running hit LGBTI+ venue Kafe Kweer

Oskar Kirk Hansen performs as Mystika Glamoor. Pic: Oskar Kirk Hansen

Kafe Kweer is a compact, busy space. The walls are busy; on the left is a small ethical groceries stand, to the right a collection of queer books, magazines and art. Downstairs is a micro-gallery which will soon become a Free Fringe venue, and nestled among all this is the cafe counter. On a grey Friday morning in August, the three tables are rarely vacant; adults sit in pairs and catch up on gossip or discuss the politics of Kashmir, an extended family crowds around a table with smoothies and hot chocolates for the young children on their laps. A teen comes in to show their younger sibling around, an older person pops in to buy a pastry. After five years of relative success during some of the most difficult times for the hospitality industry, Kafe Kweer will be shutting its doors on 1 September- this is not the end of the road for the space, though.

An experiment gone right

“We were shocked when we made it through the first year… then I feel like I blinked and we were here.” says Oskar Kirk Hansen, co-owner of Kafe Kweer. Hansen opened the restaurant in August 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic when his other career in drag performance moved fully online due to lockdown restrictions. He put a ponderful post online about whether an empty retail space should become a new cafe for the queer community, thinking nothing would come of it; but Hansen’s friend and future business partner thought the idea had legs.

The premises where Kafe Kweer launched during lockdown. Pic: Kafe Kweer

A couple of months and a hugely successful GoFundMe later, Kafe Kweer was ready to open its doors. The seemingly senseless business plan to open a cafe during Covid had also been encouraged by masses of online messages, from parents whose kids had just come out and needed an under 18s friendly space, from adults who were tired of night life and wanted a more relaxed LGBTI+ space, and many more. “So mostly as a queer spaces, you only have nightclubs and bars which I love, but… you can't really go in if you're under 18,” says Hansen, explaining why it’s so important to have sober, and all-age spaces for the queer community. “In some ways, we had no idea what we're doing. But we just knew at this point that there was a desire for us,” Hansen says.

More than just a cafe

“I wanted there to be something for everyone,” says Hansen as we sit in the busy cafe-shop-gallery combo. This was partly a strategy to keep doors open as a shop during lockdowns, but also to make the space as inclusive as possible.