A Toast to Building Community, Celebrating Queer Joy, and Uplifting Each Other with Hutch Hutchinson from Henrietta Hudson

Henrietta Hudson is one of the longest-running lesbian bars in the country, operating out of the West Village in New York City. Since 1991, they’ve stood as a pillar in the community, existing as a queer bar, safe haven, and home for everyone.

Toast creates technology to help restaurants and local businesses get busy, run busy, and stay busy. The "Toast to..." series celebrates the people at the heart of those businesses and their communities, and the hard work and dedication it takes to get there. We sat down with Director of Operations and Business Partner, Hutch Hutchinson, to chat about being a part of a vital community hub, queer joy as an act of resistance, and the importance of queer spaces all year round.

Tell me a little bit about yourself!  What’s your name and how long have you worked in the industry?

I’m Hutch, I’m a queer transmasculine New Yorker, and I use he/they pronouns. I’m currently the Director of Operations at Hen’s, and the newest business partner. I’ve been here full-time for about two years, but I’ve been around the bar for almost a decade, and come from an event production background, so I’ve been running events for close to 15 years.

How did you make that transition to the industry from events?

Back in the day, I was a patron of the bar — I’m from New York, and Hen’s was one of the first queer spaces I ever went to as a young queer person. I moved back to New York from a short stint in Los Angeles about nine years ago, and Lisa Cannistraci, one of the bar’s founders, had always told me if I ever needed anything, to let her know. I needed a job when I moved back to New York, and she told me she’d put me at the door and let me be a bouncer while I got my feet under me. It was a natural transition – I was leaving an event production job in Los Angeles and coming back home to New York, and was just looking for a place to be and a spot to come home to. 

From there, I jumped on board with Lisa and started producing events with her. We used to throw this Pride party on the East Side every year called Siren and now running Pride here without an extra party, I don’t know how we were doing this. But we used to throw this simultaneous party on the East Side with thousands of people, in addition to the thousands we were serving here. I did that with her for a couple of years. I stepped away to work in film for a little bit. After a few years, the film industry shifted and I found myself looking for work again. Lisa had been running this place for almost 35 years, so she trained me to take over the day-to-day operations as she took a step back. Now I’ve been here full-time for two years.

Tell me about Henrietta Hudson and what you do day-to-day.

What don’t I do day-to-day!? Hen’s is one of the longest-running lesbian bars in the world. The bar was opened in 1991, and has always been a space for all queer people. The demographics leaned very lesbian-centric in those early days, but it has always been an inclusive space. In more recent years, we’ve been very explicit about the fact that we’re a queer bar for all people and have used our platform to ensure that the most marginalized people in our community, including trans people and people of color, feel at home and welcome here. We’ve been in the same place for 35 years. My job is to make sure we keep the doors open for the future generations! I do all of the day-to-day operations, payroll, and scheduling; I oversee inventory and ordering; and I fix things — I think my staff thinks I can do a little bit of everything. Like, I’m the plumber, the electrician, the carpenter. If it needs to get done, I’m the person to do it. 

I work with our manager, Ash, on community partnerships, working with local organizations to throw fundraisers and events, as well as a bunch of monthly recurring events that we do at the bar that are in line with making sure people know this is a space for everyone and that there’s a home here. We host a monthly queer jazz collective and are the New York City home for Living Lesbian Archive, which is a Black lesbian zine-crafting community, so we maintain those partnerships and book events ranging from corporate ERGs (Employee Resource Groups) looking for a space for Pride happy hour fundraisers to drag shows, DJs, and various other talent. We recently partnered with Black Trans Liberation Kitchen on a Trans Day of Visibility fundraiser in March and hosted the afterparty for their Broadway is Trans fundraiser which turned into Qween Jean’s Tony Award celebration.  It was an incredible night!

What’s the hardest part about your job? And what’s the most rewarding?

The hardest thing about the job is the business side of things. I’ve gotten insight into what bars, clubs, and restaurants deal with in the city, from navigating rising insurance rates, to ensuring we’re paying the least amount of money for product and getting the best deal on things. The hardest part of business is the business, and making sure we’re covering our bottom line and maintaining a high level of service. Prices in New York City are out of control, so we’re doing our best to keep our head above water and navigate changes, which is something I haven’t had to do before in other jobs. As Lisa was training me, she said that, at the end of the day, the business is the business — we have to make sure we have that handled.

The most rewarding part is when the doors are open, seeing people walk through the door, whether it’s their first or hundredth time. We’ve been a long-standing queer haven for so long. While most of my day-to-day stuff happens during the day because that kind of stuff has to happen when the doors are closed, getting to interact with patrons, getting to know our regulars, and getting to hang out with staff while on the clock, as well as just knowing that we have a big hand in creating such an important queer space in New York City and getting that energetic feedback from people who walk in the door, is the most incredible feeling. We get it a lot this month, and that’s the best part.

Photo Credit: Gautham Krishna

What do you do when you’re not at Henrietta Hudson?

When I’m not at the bar, I’m a volunteer firefighter in Cherry Grove, a cute little queer town out on Fire Island. I still have a hand in producing events offsite — there are events that Hen’s has co-sponsored both before and since I’ve been here, including the dapperQ Fashion Show, the largest queer fashion show in the world, at the Brooklyn Museum. I also produce a party out in Cherry Grove, which is really fun, and I run a queer softball team, play on a gay hockey team, and organize with MIX FEST (the oldest queer experimental film festival in the City), as well. I also have a dog named Samson — he spends a lot of time in the window at Hen’s, usually where the dancers are on Friday and Saturday nights, but he gets the spot during the daytime. We spend a lot of time wandering around the West Village together.

How does Toast technology help you manage it all?

We love Toast! Whenever I onboard another bartender with experience from other bars, they’re so often thrilled we have Toast at the bar — it’s super user-friendly. Me and Toast have a date every Monday morning when I run payroll. I personally love the backend, whether it’s crunching numbers to figure out how the schedule should sit for the coming weeks based on prior events, and our staff uses the time clock feature, which is really easy to navigate. We do seasonal menu changes here, where we try to bring in smaller specialty beer or cider depending on the season, so being able to switch menus and run numbers on sales just helps us to be a more dynamic space where we know what our guests want and can deliver according to the numbers.

Why are queer spaces like Henrietta’s important in June and always? 

Over the past couple years, we’ve been saying that queer spaces are important now more than ever, and we keep doubling down on that. The world outside of our four walls continues to be really hard for queer people, for trans people, for people of color, for immigrants, and for people of so many intersectional identities. We’ve just been an institution in the community and serve as a community hub in so many ways. 

Queer people deserve a space where they can feel safe and celebrated and can exist. When people walk through the doors and their shoulders relax and they calm down, there’s a sense of freedom within our four walls that’s really important for the community. 

How we serve our community is really important, and we do so by making sure people feel welcome through ongoing partnerships with local orgs. We partner with a lot of local queer sports leagues so our patrons can go from a space where they’ve historically been pushed to the margins, and now have leagues specifically for us that uplift us. Through partnering with them, we can help people continue to build community over a beer or drink at the bar, which is so important. Lisa always says that queer joy is an act of resistance, and we are really a place of joy. We’re packed from Wednesday to Sunday — for the most part Friday and Saturday nights are always dance parties — and as queer people, we deserve a space to experience joy and celebrate each other, build community and friendships, fall in love, and make mistakes. Let’s have a space where we can be happy in spite of everything that’s going on.

Photo Credit: Gautham Krishna

We know in this business, being busy isn’t a burden, it’s a badge of honor. As you’re entering into one of your busiest seasons at Hen’s for Pride, how do you handle your busiest moments?

This is honestly one of my favorite questions — it's really important to remember that we’re lucky to be so busy. It’s such a treat, and especially during Pride when there’s a million things on the calendar, it’s important for people who work in queer nightlife during Pride to remember that our responsibility is making sure this space exists for the greater community to have that experience. 

We did a pre-Pride staff lunch this week where we got everyone together, shared a meal, and reminded ourselves that we’re all human and why we're here. Then, we send our staff away for a post-Pride celebration and give them a few days away in Fire Island so they can go relax. But for the four-ish weeks of June, we’re here and have to hold it down. How we handle busy moments is that as a staff we’re here year-round and putting in the work. We’re developing our systems and training our people, so leaning on what we’ve established means that our staff really loves and respects each other. 

Working at a place like Hen’s is a job and it’s more than a job —we’re an institution, and for me it’s a calling to carry on the legacy of a queer space that’s been here for so many years. It’s about leaning on each other and remembering what our values are — by Pride Sunday at midnight, when everyone’s out of patience and drunk and partying, it’s important to remember that people are people and it’s important to treat people with respect. 

In our trainings, we always ask, how would you like to be treated if that was you? We're always moving in ways that align with our values, treating people with respect and remembering to zoom out of the moment to remember why we’re here and celebrating Pride, and why we’re here at Hen’s celebrating Pride, and letting that carry us through the weekend.

How do you balance showing up for your regulars around Pride while also welcoming new people into the bar?

We get our regulars as well as an influx of people around Pride; something we’ve done over the past years is develop a culture at the bar of respect. We teach our staff how to assert themselves and establish boundaries, and have printed out guidelines that are a quick one-page read before you get into the bar that establish tipping your performers and bartenders, being kind to people on the dance floor, and that’s the culture of the bar. It’s good for people who aren’t in the motions of being in a healthy, safe queer space to onboard them quickly and help them play by the program.

Photo Credit: Gautham Krishna

Who in the industry (friend/mentor/icon you look up to) would you like to Toast? 

I’d like to Toast to Lisa Cannistraci and Minnie Rivera, the founders of Hen’s. I’d also love to Toast to anyone in sapphic queer nightlife in New York City — we’ve been here, and this is the month that we all suit up and show up and do the most for the community. We love our community comrades at Cubbyhole and Ginger’s and The Bush, and all of the pop-up party organizers who’ve been doing this for years. I was at Pat’s thirteenth birthday party last week — I was also at the first one — and Amber Valentine and JD Samson have been organizing for so many years; to see what it’s grown into has been incredible. We’re doing that work in June and year-round over so many years of organizing.

What are you Toast-ing with today? 

I’m toasting with a non-alcoholic beer and a Celsius (because we order that in bulk for Pride!).

This interview was edited for space and clarity.

Hutch Hutchinson is the Director of Operations and Business Partner at Henrietta Hudson, you can follow the bar on Instagram and Facebook.