Before The Soft Spot officially opened its doors in Garfield, it seemed like the space was already buzzing with people. At the end of last year, the “Sapphic cafe open late,” as it was billed on its Instagram page, began filling a roster of community events: a meetup for queer late bloomers with a “romance cover vibe;” a “Pitch a Dyke” night where people could talk up their single friends; game nights including “come alone” UNO; and a winter solstice arm-wrestling, pie-eating, spaghetti dinner rent party (the event’s official title) that also raised funds for The Soft Spot’s construction.
“Our community, everybody stepped up, everybody stepped in. That’s somebody else’s ladder,” owner Aerin Adams-Fuchs said, gesturing above one the cafe’s accessible purple bathrooms. “There’s a bag of tarps up there that somebody else brought in.”
The Soft Spot, Adams-Fuchs explained, has a “do everything mindset.” Designed as a queer community hub, event space and co-working coffee shop, the cafe is one of few places in Pittsburgh centered around sapphic-aligned people — an inclusive term for women and nonbinary people who are attracted to women, regardless of specific orientation (lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, etc.). The term, derived from the ancient Greek poet Sappho, who famously wrote lyric poetry about her love of other women, is having something of a modern renewal. The sapphic label been embraced online, at film festivals and at book clubs, and is loosely associated with softness, sensuality and nostalgia.
In that spirit, The Soft Spot aims to be a “cozy, comfy space,” Adams-Fuchs said.
Bright colors are splashed throughout the shop, including a checkerboard floor with rainbow tiles mixed in — “our claim to gay fame is that [the floor] was drawn at Blue Moon during a drag show,” Adams-Fuchs said.
The cafe is also a sober space, serving coffee and espresso drinks with on-theme names like “Blue Is The Warmest Latte” and “Lavender Panic,” offered as an alternative to nightlife that revolves around alcohol consumption. The Open Road, a nonalcoholic bottle shop next door, curates a menu of spritzers and NA beverages.
“Doing so much in the space feels like the only way to really honor what it is to be a sapphic person, because it really does encapsulate so much,” Adams-Fuchs said.
She also cites Harold’s Haunt, Millvale’s sober-friendly “haunted they bar,” and sarah huny young (who spells her name all lowercase) of the Mostbeautifullest nightlife collective, who’s “built every other sapphic space that we have in this city,” as inspirations.
Soft Spot guests can settle into two nooks to watch TV — recent picks include “Hamilton” and “The Golden Girls” — play music on a CD, cassette or record player, or craft, collage and make friendship bracelets. Queer books are for sale alongside a little free library, with family-friendly touches including children’s books and a playmat rug. The space features art from five local artists including paintings, poetry and fiber art, that will rotate as part of a two-month residency. Two stages will soon host open mic nights and acoustic artists including a jam session in the works with Southern Gothic band Bonnie & the Mere Mortals.
“We’re really excited to be able to to get the little bit of ‘Smelly Cat’ vibes, a little bit of the classic coffee shop moment,” Adams-Fuchs said (referring to the song from “Friends”). “It’s just a very nostalgic feeling that is comforting in a way that we are all very desperate for right now.”
The Soft Spot was born, in part, from Adams-Fuchs seeking some of that comfort after she was laid off from her “mega corporate” job last April.
“I had been pretty well crushed,” she said. Hunting for a new job she wondered, “Am I going to continue to give my time, effort and passion to a group of people that legitimately hates me and is actively lobbying to have my rights taken away — not only as a queer person, but as a woman?”
During a sleepless night, “I rolled over, and I looked at Samm, my wife, and was like, ‘Would you hate me if I didn’t go back to work? … What if I started a coffee shop?” Adams-Fuchs remembered. “And [Samm] just rolled over and [asked], ‘All right, what’s it called?’ ”
“I think it’s kind of every queer person’s dream to open up a coffee shop, a bookstore that has art and invite their neighbors,” she added. “I feel like we all have that conversation amongst ourselves.”
The couple created The Soft Spot’s orchid logo (the double entendre makes them chuckle) and set out to find a space. Ultimately, they landed on the former Penn Aiken Dairy, which had, ironically, also been a beer distributor.
“So, The Open Road, the sober bottle shop, and The Soft Spot, the queer sober space, have now taken over the old beer shop,” Adams-Fuchs said.
Starting from a “cement box” in August, she and a daily stream of community members converted the space, retrofitting finds from Mac.Bid — “we’re tool gays,” she says — and furnishing it with thrifted decor.
Polling Instagram followers about a possible location for a sapphic cafe, Pittsburgh’s Garfield neighborhood — long a vibrant arts district — had ranked high. In the last couple years, Adams-Fuchs said, Garfield has also emerged as something of a “gayborhood … something I’m actively working on,” with LGBTQ-owned and friendly businesses The Open Road, Leona’s Ice Cream, Mary’s Bar, Kindred Spirit Tattoo, The Mr. Roboto Project, Two Frays Brewery, Third Space Bakery and Spak Brothers pizza shop all located on the same mile-long stretch of Penn Avenue.
Adams-Fuchs believed the location would also help establish The Soft Spot as multi-generational space where LGBTQ youth could feel welcome, something she took “very, very seriously.”
“When they leave, they can wander down [the street] and see a queer-owned business. They can go into a lesbian-owned space and eat food prepared by people that love them. They have the ability to have a full experience of what life can be,” Adams-Fuchs said.
On Wednesday afternoon, a group was gathered at The Soft Spot’s bar (which sits lower to the ground for wheelchair accessibility), gossiping, exchanging phone numbers and trading career advice, just as Adams-Fuchs had envisioned.
Rachel Rechtenwald echoed similar sentiments.
“What I love about this place is meeting queer people of all generations,” Rechtenwald said. “So I have my buddy here who’s much younger than me, and I have my friends who are my age, and then I have people of all generations just hanging out, having fun, getting to know each other. It’s very affirming.”
“To me, it feels like a second adolescence,” she added. “It’s like being 16 again, hanging out with my friends, except this time around, I love myself.”
Anna Labick came to The Soft Spot hoping to find in-person connection apart from the internet — that nostalgic coffee shop feeling — while Tao Neuendorffer had come in for the first time that day after seeing the cafe on Instagram.
“I feel like I never got to experience a space that I can just go to,” Labick said. “Every time I’m here, I know I’m going to see somebody that I know, so there’s already that familiarity … but also, every single time I’m here, I meet someone new that’s really, really cool.”
Lizzy Mims believes The Soft Spot’s longevity will be tied to its strong sense of purpose as a space for “community and healing.”
“As a lesbian who’s lived in Pittsburgh for a long time, you see a lot of gay bars that open and that close, but I think there’s a difference between a gay bar and a queer space,” she said. “As a queer person, I think it means a lot, especially now, to know that there is a space, and it doesn’t matter where you are in your journey. It’s not about labels, it’s just about people.”
The Soft Spot will celebrate its grand opening on Sunday, marked by its “do everything” mix of arts and crafts, “friendship mingle bingo,” story time with drag queen LuLu M. Rogers, and a goose-naming ritual. The last activity seems to have generated the most intrigue, but it refers to a “porch goose” that’s been conscripted as the cafe’s mascot.
Adams-Fuchs wants to be democratic, but wonders if any other goose name will beat out “Mother.” Lady GaGoose is another strong contender — “so much potential for costuming,” Mims said.
Of the last stage of opening The Soft Spot, Adams-Fuchs said, “I’m still in a state of shock where it’s like, I know it’s here … This is the happiest place.”
“We’re stoked for the challenge,” she added. “We’re going to keep doing so many things. There’s going to keep being crafts and board games and whistle kit making and soft family time and story hour and books. We’re going to keep doing all of it. We deserve it.”