H.G Roosters in West Palm celebrates a milestone 42nd anniversary with a week jam-packed with events, starting on Monday, Sept. 21. But it’s history as a gathering space for LGBTQ folks goes back to even before it opened. In the 1940’s the building at 823 Belvedere Rd. first opened as Club Sirocco, with a discrete LGBTQ following. In the 1960s the space was home to My Apartment, a private key club catering to lesbians. In the 1970’s it became Turf West, one of thee bars under the Turf umbrella in Palm Beach County (PBC), owned by Gene Greeter.
Bill Capozzi and Tom McKenzie opened Roosters in April 1984, just as the specter of AIDS was looming. At that time there were 21 LGBTQ bars in PBC. Roosters hosted many fundraising events for community organizations helping people with AIDS and doing research into the disease. Roosters continued to thrive for more than 30 years, then came COVID-19. During the bar’s shut down, it’s owner, A.J. Wasson, chose to keep his employees on the payroll by having them do minor repairs, painting, and deep cleaning inside the shuttered building. To free up the funds to pay their salaries, Wasson made the incredibly difficult decision to let the building's property insurance lapse, which saved him $50,000 that he used to pay salaries.
While staff members were working on the upkeep of the building during the shutdown, they used linseed oil to refinish some of the wood furniture. On the night of May 19, a pile of those chemical-soaked maintenance rags spontaneously combusted in the kitchen area. Without property insurance, Wasson could not rebuild the bar.
The community rallied around Roosters, donating over $75,000 for rebuilding efforts, including a $9,000 donation from the WPB Firefighters Union. While working with the city on rebuilding plans, ownership was approached by the City’s Historic Preservation Planner about designating the site historic, due to its cultural contribution to the community. The City Commission votes unanimously to designate H.G. Roosters as a historic site. It is the third gay bar in the United States to be so designated. In Nov. of 2022 the rebuilding started and the bar reopened on May 19 2025. As it celebrates its 42nd anniversary, it is now officially Florida’s oldest continuously operating gay bar.
