Steakhouse or Gay Bar?: Finally, A Website Breaks It Down

Anne Fishbein

Cut's Japanese and Kobe beef

In Westlake, there is an establishment called the Silver Platter. The name brings to mind slabs of prime rib served on shining plates with ornate handles. However, if you go, you'll find no beef, just plenty of wriggling flesh on the dance floor. Over on Wilshire in Beverly Hills, there is Cut, Wolfgang Puck's steakhouse and one of Jonathan Gold's 99 Essential Restaurants of 2011. Yet, if you didn't know better, you might show up expecting washboard abs and house music instead of Kobe steak.

Gay bars and steakhouses tend to attract different clientele -- especially in places like Texas -- but naming protocol can be similar. Both often attempt to evoke both manliness and opulence. What's a feller to do if he's seeking one and worrying about accidentally stumbling into the other? Gosh forbid! That's where Steakhouse or Gay Bar? comes in.

The website not only reveals the names of both steakhouses and gay bars in cities across America, it also, via its simple online quiz, trains a user to differentiate. For example, take the Pink Pony. Is it a steakhouse or a gay bar? Hmm, let's see. The "pink" obviously suggests gayness. The "pony" suggests cowboys -- classic iconography for both bars and steakhouses. Gay bar, you say? No. The Pink Pony is a venerable Phoenix steakhouse. Don't feel bad though. As the site helpfully points out, 66% of visitors also messed that one up. As is often the case with sites like this, the sample size is fairly small, and after a few spins through, you end up seeing the same names over and over. Still, we powered through with a 70%.