That quality of being both laid back and unpredictable is part of Singers’ appeal, said P.E. Moskowitz, a writer and a Singers regular who helped organize Twinks vs. Dolls. “When I go to a hip bar like Clandestino, I feel like I’m being watched,” Mx. Moskowitz, 35, who is nonbinary and uses they and them pronouns, said. “But when I go here, I’ll literally wear tennis clothes covered in sweat,” which they were, in fact, wearing on a recent Thursday evening.
“Maybe some people come here because they think it’s cool, but no offense, I don’t think it’s a cool place,” they said. “It’s a place where no one knows your name, except the people who do.”
Singers, which opened its doors in May 2022, is housed in a converted warehouse that had sat unused since the closing of a gastro pub in the space in 2018. Michael Guisinger and Brooke Peshke, who own Singers and live near the bar, had watched the venue remain vacant for years and wanted to transform the husk of the restaurant into a neighborhood saloon. They initially thought to name it Guisinger’s but decided that Singers was easier to pronounce.
Singers draws a quieter crowd during the day before it fills up at night: stylish gay people with pan-European accents, couples on awkward first dates, solo journalists on assignment sipping a “Not Lasagna No. 1” (a spicy pineapple margarita the bar has recently rebranded as “Girl Dinner”).
