Meet the 50-Year Couple Whose Iconic Bar Pulled Chicago's Gay Community Together
Art Johnston and José "Pep" Peña fell in love in 1973. A decade later, they opened Sidetrack, the video bar that's been a hub of The Windy City's LGBTQ scene ever since.
Hey there, folks! Good to be back with you and I hope you’re having a restful and joy-filled holiday season. Well, I promised myself that, going forward with my Caftan Chronicles interviews with gay men “of a certain age” who’ve led remarkable lives, I’d get out of the New York City-San Francisco-Los Angeles Triangle. And that’s why I’m so delighted to introduce you to Art Johnston and José “Pepe” (or simply “Pep”) Peña, who met in Chicago in 1973 and, a decade later, opened Sidetrack, the city’s first gay video bar, behind an unmarked doorfront. In the 40 years to follow, the bar would not only get bigger and bigger, but it would become a crucial anchor for gay Chicago’s social life—and its gay-rights, AIDS, marriage-equality and racial- and trans-equity activism of the next 40 years. It’s probably about the closest thing that Chicago has to Stonewall, and the story behind it is remarkable and juicy!
Now, as “Art and Pep,” as they are widely know, prepare to turn over the bar’s reins in coming years (and start a 420-selling business, now that weed is legal in Illinois), they took time from preparing for their staff holiday party to tell me about the past 40 years of their bar and 50 years of their relationship. It’s a really beautiful story about what gay life was like just after Stonewall (and beyond) in a city that did not really become known as a gay destination spot for years after NYC, SF and LA. But as anyone who’s been to Chicago knows, it’s an extraordinary, stunning, progressive and vibrant city—especially in the summer, where the vast lakefront makes you feel like you’re in Miami. I can’t wait to go back—and when I do, I’ll definitely be heading to Sidetrack and setting up an in-person meetup with Art and Pep! Talking with them reaffirmed why I started The Caftan Chronicles in the first place—because in the past 50 years, we gay men have done incredible things, often against tremendous societal and personal odds, and these stories must be told!
I want to thank Greg McFall for introducing me to Art and Pep. And I want to thank everyone who’s subscribed to The Caftan Chronicles the past few months. The subscriber base grows a bit with each new installment, and I hope to have many, many juicy new interviews for you in 2022 (some of them are already in the works!)
Love to you all,
Tim.
And now for my chat with Art & Pep…
Tim: Art and Pep, thank you so much for talking to me!
Art: Of course. Tomorrow, we have our holiday party for the Sidetrack staff at our house, so we're a little crazy. But thank you for focusing on Chicago. We adjusted years ago to being in a flyover state. If things in the gay community don't happen in New York or California, they get overlooked. But in Chicago, we feel like we've had our own path toward things and have a vibrant exciting gay community of our own.
Tim: Neither of you were born in Chicago, correct?
Art: Yes. Pep came here from Cuba and I came from Buffalo by way of Virginia, and neither of us thought we were going to love it here so much.
Tim: How would you describe Chicago to someone who's never been—or, like me, has only been briefly a few times?
Pep: Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that Northalsted, the gay area, used to be called Boystown.
Tim: Oh. It's not called that anymore?
Pep: Well, it will forever be Boystown for me, Art and others. But some folks thought it sent the wrong message because it didn't include everyone, so now it's officially Northalsted.
Tim: Who said it shouldn't be called Boystown anymore?
Art: Most young activists, gays and a number of nonbinary folks. I'm glad anytime we see any kind of activism in younger folks—it's exciting. But I doubt we'll be able to fully get rid of Boystown. Once you have a nickname, it sticks.
Tim: Is the area now more than diverse than just boys?
Pep: Oh, yes.
Art: Yes, for sure. Chicago, I'm sad to say, is one of the most segregated cities in the country, and that comes from a long history of people in charge, politicians, really trying to keep folks separate. And it happens that areas where the gay bars have been were predominantly white, so we're still dealing with ways to make it [more diverse].
Tim: Okay. So Pep, you moved to Chicago in—?
Pep: In 1971. Because I'm from Cuba, I had to do at least five years in Miami first [laughs] and then I came here. Miami in the late 1960s was not a proper city. I came to Chicago once on vacation and fell in love with it. It's a real city while Miami felt more like a suburb to me. I drove on Lakeshore Drive and fell completely in love because it reminded me of the seawall in Havana.
Tim: Have you ever experienced bias or discrimination in Chicago for being Latino?
Pep: Not that I'm aware of. But I'm good at ignoring things.
Tim: Okay guys, before we delve into the past and the history of Sidetrack's place in Chicago's gay scene, what is a typical day like for you today?
Art: This is a little crazy of us, but we're both 78 and we're actually launching a new business selling cannabis, which has become legal in Illinois. We'll be opening a dispensary as soon as the state figures out what they're doing.
Tim: Are you avid consumers yourselves?
Art: [laughs] We are supporters in every way. When we first opened the bar, Pep would say, "Wouldn't it be great if we could make a living selling marijuana instead of alcohol?" [laughs] And Pep is still a VJ three nights a week at the bar. I don't spend as much time there as I used to. But we've had the great good fortune of being involved in a lot of stuff in our community. One night just three weeks ago, the governor of our state [J.B. Pritzker] was at the bar with the mayor of Chicago [Lori Lightfoot] and four congresspeople. I thought, "My God, it's not many years ago when no elected official would be caught dead at a gay bar." We're now such a regular stop that we have to schedule them so they don't bump into one another there.
Tim: You're right, that is quite a change. Now, Pep, you're still the VJ for the famous musical theater nights at Sidetrack, yes?
Pep: That's right, two or sometimes three shifts a week.
Tim: What are the longtime showstoppers?
Pep: At this point, it's music from [the 2017 movie musical based on P.T. Barnum starring Hugh Jackman] The Greatest Showman—"This Is Me," and "From Now On," and "Never Enough." Then of course there are the classics, like "All that Jazz" from Chicago, Liza Minnelli singing "Cabaret,” Streisand singing "Don't Rain On My Parade"—those things never die.
Tim: is there one clip you have to play every time?
Pep: Madonna singing "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" [from the 1996 film version of Evita].
Art: Our audience has developed their own lyrics to some of the songs. "Oklahoma!" is "Oklahomo!" And they'll grab stacks of napkins and everyone will throw them in the air at a particular moment in the song. In the 1980s, we were busy every night but Monday, so we decided to try the musicals night. We never expected it to become the blockbuster that it became. People even bring props that go with Wicked. It's kind of a Rocky Horror short of [participative] thing.
Tim: Okay, cool, now let's jump back in time to 1973, the year the two of you met. Pep, you were working at a gay bar called Shari's. Tell us about it.