Cuties Coffee Bar is a friendly neighborhood café with a purpose. In addition to the artisan-roaster coffee and vegan pastries, it serves something the LGBTQ community has been craving: a relaxed, queer-oriented space that's inviting to all ages and types.
"Intergenerational spaces are so important," says Iris Bainum-Houle, who cofounded Cuties with partner Virginia Bauman. "Bars and nightclubs are usually 18- or 21-plus, and some of the most vulnerable people in our community are under 18. And Cuties is a place where older people can feel comfortable, too. Since we're offering a space not centered around alcohol, Cuties is also a place where people who are in recovery or struggling with substance abuse can come to be social."
Bainum-Houle and Bauman have been brewing the idea of building a community open to all of L.A.'s LGBTQIA+ "alphabet soup," as Bainum-Houle playfully puts it, since long before they signed a lease on the café space. While working to locate, crowdfund and build out Cuties, they launched Queers, Coffee and Donuts, a traveling event series that has grown to host around 100 attendees for each breakfast meet-up. Those gatherings will continue in the café and will likely expand from monthly to weekly. The pair also launched an email newsletter and online community around the Cuties concept, which shares queer-friendly happenings and resources, and now they're looking for new ways to use the café to identify and fill community needs.
Cuties is all about positivity, right down to its name. "When we were first coming up with the idea for the coffee shop, we wanted a non-gender-specific term of endearment," Bainum-Houle says. "A boy, girl or anyone in between can be a cutie."
Cuties is located at 710 North Heliotrope Drive in East Hollywood. It's currently soft open through July 28.
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