When Erik Piepenburg’s favorite gay restaurant—known by Chicago locals as “the Melrose”—closed in 2017, he thought it signaled the end of an era not only for himself, but for the entire LGBTQ+ community across the country. In writing Dining Out: First Dates, Defiant Nights, and Last Call Disco Fries at America’s Gay Restaurants, he discovered something else: gay restaurants are thriving across the U.S., in big cities and small towns.

Piepenburg came out and came of age in the ‘90s, moving from Cleveland, Ohio to Chicago, Washington, D.C., and eventually New York City, where he lives today and works as a journalist for The New York Times, covering stories that often place LGBTQ+ issues and food at the center.

From his home in Hell’s Kitchen, Piepenburg spoke with Civil Eats, still savoring the publication of Dining Out a year ago. At the outset of another Pride Month—56 years since the first Pride march, following the 1969 Stonewall Uprising—and at a time when civil rights are increasingly under threat by the Trump administration, Piepenburg shared thoughts about his book, what defines gay restaurants, how these spaces are evolving, and their critical role in the LGBTQ+ community throughout history as places of nourishment, centers for activism, and much more.