The Wildrose is a lesbian bar in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is located in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, and opened in 1985.

Venue: The Wildrose (bar)
Address: 1021 East Pike Street, Seattle, Washington 98122, United States
Town: Seattle, US

The Wildrose is a lesbian bar in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is located in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, and opened in 1985. It is the city's only lesbian bar. Business partners Shelley Brothers and Martha Manning, the current owners of The Wildrose, took over from the original founders in the early 2000s. The LGBTQ-owned bar is located at the corner of East Pike Street and 11th Avenue in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. It resides on the bottom floor of a mixed-use apartment building constructed in 1905 and designed by architects Carl Breitung and Theobald Buchinger. The building was originally known as Lorraine Court. Today, it is known as the Winston Building. Seattle's first lesbian bars opened in the 1950s in Pioneer Square and Downtown. At the time, Pioneer Square was the center of Seattle's LGBTQ social scene. The Hub opened first in 1950, and the Grand Union, Sappho's Tavern, Madison Tavern and the Silver Slipper followed. Previously, lesbians gathered at queer bars like The Casino and The Garden of Allah. Bryher Herak, one of Wildrose's founders, believed that bars like these were an essential early and accepting gathering space for the lesbian community. In the early 1980s, a collective of five women decided to open a lesbian bar that was "light, served good food, and was a place where women would feel comfortable bringing friends and family, straight and gay." Herak described it as a "women's place", and not a place only for women. After scouting locations for the bar, the group decided on 1021 E Pine Street, the location of a former sports bar. The founders liked the location because it had big, street-facing windows. During a time when most LGBT spaces were hidden, accessed through secret entrances, and advertised by word-of-mouth, these features of light and visibility were important to the founders. Additionally, the bar's location in Capitol Hill meant it was in Seattle's current gayborhood. Herak chose the name Wildrose for the bar i