The Queen Street Story

Before the scene

Queen Street runs from the Promenade, close to North Pier, up towards Dickson Road and the streets around Blackpool North station. For most of its life it was an ordinary town-centre street, with shops, offices and the Grundy Art Gallery, which has stood there since 1911. When Blackpool's modern gay scene began in 1979, its centre of gravity was a few hundred yards away, at the Flamingo on Talbot Road, opposite the station. Queen Street's turn came later.

Funny Girls lights the fuse

The street's transformation started in July 1994, when Basil Newby opened Funny Girls in a small corner unit at the Promenade end of Queen Street, where it meets The Strand. The drag cabaret was an instant hit, the queues snaked down the pavement, and the show quickly spread into neighbouring shops. In the space of a few years Queen Street went from a quiet shopping street to one of the busiest nightlife strips in town. Newby has credited the pink pound with regenerating it.

Other bars followed. Buzz became part of Newby's group, and further up the street a three-storey building that had been Faye's Cafe Bar in the 1990s became Roxy's, known for drag cabaret, karaoke and a multi-level, gothic-style interior. Lucy's, the long-running bar that mainly catered for women, was nearby on Abingdon Street.

The Odeon block

In 2002 Funny Girls left Queen Street for the restored Odeon cinema on Dickson Road, a block that backs on to Queen Street. The old corner unit later became a Walkabout bar. But rather than draining the street, the move tied it more firmly into the scene. When the council bought the Talbot Road building that housed the Flamingo and the Flying Handbag for redevelopment, both venues moved to this block in January 2006:

• On 20 January 2006 the Flying Handbag opened in a new, purpose-built pub on a former car park at the corner of Queen Street and Lord Street. It still describes itself as Blackpool's only purpose-built LGBTQ+ venue.
• About a week later the Flamingo moved into the upper floors of the Odeon, with its entrance on Queen Street.

With Funny Girls, the Flamingo, the Handbag and the bars on Queen Street all within a stone's throw, the area became a compact, self-contained gay village, and Queen Street was its high street.

Ups and downs

The 2010s were turbulent. In 2018 the Flamingo's licence was suspended for four weeks after police raised concerns about late serving and door staffing, and within months Newby's group went into administration. In January 2019 the Lancashire brewer Thwaites bought the estate. That August Newby bought back Funny Girls, the Flamingo and Buzz, while Thwaites kept the Flying Handbag.

Thwaites then gave the Handbag a £500,000 makeover, closing it for seven weeks to fit a new stage, sound and lighting, a new bar and new toilets. It reopened on 28 February 2020, with Joe McElderry performing on the first night, just weeks before the pandemic shut every bar in the country. Today the Handbag runs cabaret, karaoke, quizzes and drag DJs from midday until the early hours, and still has its horseshoe bar, conservatory and roof terrace.

Sherlock's

Roxy's later became the Whippet Inn under Newby's group and passed to Thwaites in the 2018–19 shake-up. It was then bought by Garry Prentice and Cal Eden, who had run Eden Bar in Birmingham's gay village. They announced a rebrand in January 2020, but Covid delayed everything. Sherlock's finally opened on 5 November 2021, with Danny Beard, who would go on to win Drag Race UK, performing on opening night. Its balcony overlooking Queen Street has become one of the best people-watching spots in the quarter, and in June 2025 it hosted the after-party for the premiere of the documentary Queering Blackpool.

Kaos

At 38 to 42 Queen Street stands the building that was once the Trades Bar and later became Kaos, known for its industrial look, metal dancefloor and music from the 1980s onwards. After a spell when it was listed as closed, Kaos was bought by new owners, who shut it in April 2026 for twelve weeks of work on everything from the floors and drainage to new glitterballs and neon rainbows. It reopened on 11 July 2026, with Drag Race UK's Zahirah Zapanta headlining later that month. The reopening was one of the clearest signs of new investment in the street.

Pride on Queen Street

Queen Street has always been where Pride weekend ends up. When the festival moved to the Tower Headland in 2019, the organisers worried about pulling it away from the bars, so the Sunday was handed back to Queen Street, with events in partnership with the Flying Handbag and Kaos. In 2026 the new Rainbow Quarter Street Party took over nearby Lord Street, and the bars of Queen Street, Dickson Road and Lord Street spilled outside together.

Art on Queen Street

Queen Street is also home to the Grundy Art Gallery, which has played its own part in the story. Between February and June 2022, photographs of early-1990s nights at the Flamingo and the Flying Handbag were shown on the gallery's forecourt as part of the We're Still Here! heritage project, so passers-by on their way to the bars could see the scene's past on the same street as its present. More than 10,000 people saw that display, and the Grundy is due to host one of two major LGBTQ+ heritage exhibitions in 2027.

Queen Street today

Walk up Queen Street from the Prom on a Saturday night and you pass most of Blackpool's LGBTQ+ history in a few minutes: the corner where Funny Girls began, the Flying Handbag at the Lord Street junction, Sherlock's balcony, the revived Kaos and the side entrance of the old Odeon. The council's Be You programme has added new street lighting, Progress Pride street signs and planters to the surrounding streets, and more CCTV is planned for the area.

Like any busy nightlife street, it has its rough edges, and attacks still happen from time to time. But for thousands of visitors every year, Queen Street is where a night out in gay Blackpool begins and ends.

Opening times, owners and line-ups change, so check before you go.