WORCESTER, Mass. - In March, The Femme Bar opened its doors in Worcester as one of just a handful of lesbian bars in the nation, and the only in New England.

Among Worcester’s lineup of pubs, dive bars, nightclubs and taverns, the bar serves a community often overlooked in the nightlife scene.

Danielle Spring and Julie Toupin, the married couple running the Femme Bar, decided to open it after realizing there were so few lesbian bars in the country.

“She went on a deep dive of lesbian-owned businesses at first, and then it turned into her finding certain TikToks that were just about lesbian bars in general, and I had never visited a lesbian bar and there’s not one anywhere near us,” Toupin said.

In the 1980s, there were more than 200 lesbian bars across the country, according to The Lesbian Bar Project.

“I got infatuated with it and we visited the Cubby Hole, which was literally like heaven,” Spring said. “It felt like home being our first time there, and that’s how we figured it out and how we came to wanting to start our own.”

In the early days of their planning, Toupin worked closely with Spring’s sister, as Spring was still warming up to the idea. Sadly, her sister passed away, and Spring fully embraced the mission in her honor.

When the Femme Bar opened in March with lines stretching down Green Street, they felt the importance of their new business venture grow. It turns out, a lot of people had been waiting for it.

“I think one of the coolest things for me personally has been meeting a lot of the older lesbians, and just them telling me how important this space is for them because of what they went through when they were younger,” Toupin said. “That’s something that sticks out to me a lot.”

“The events are turning people into regulars too, so that’s pretty cool,” Spring said. “Because now the bartenders are known by name, they have their regular customers, it’s like we’re our own 'Cheers.'”

When they’re not busy on running the business, the owners also like to help others find love when they can.

“People will match here, and then they’ll come back as a couple and it’s the coolest thing to be like ‘That started here,” Spring said.

“Danielle has a good track record of setting people up. I don’t however,” Toupin joked.

While there hadn’t been a place for lesbians to go out for drinks and events in Massachusetts quite like the Femme Bar, Spring and Toupin are happy things are changing and look forward to the future for their business.

“I hope more and more people start to open queer spaces as these kids who are really trying to fight for who they are start to come up,” Spring said. “We didn’t really look at it as like a need for Worcester, it was more just a need.”