Park Slope Gay Bar Excelsior To Close After 20 Years On Fifth Ave

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — Longtime Fifth Avenue gay bar Excelsior will celebrate one last Pride Month before closing its doors this summer, the business announced this week.

Owners Richard Kennedy and Mark Nayden posted a letter on the bar's Facebook page Monday announcing that July 31 will be the bar's last day open after 20 years in the neighborhood. The owners said that rising costs, which have been the reason for many Park Slope businesses closing recently, led to the decision.

“More than ever, rising costs, like rent and taxes, make your neighborhood bars and restaurants struggle every day,” the post. “Twenty years of serving this community is something we are proud of, and in this World Pride Month we plan on celebrating each and every day. We hope you will join us and show your pride.”

Kennedy and Nayden went on to thank their customers, patrons, friends, family, the industry, performers who had been featured at the bar and both their current and former staff.

Excelsior first opened in 1999 and once closed briefly back in 2014 before reopening in a new spot down the street. The bar is now found at 563 Fifth Ave.

Bargoers already started posting their regrets that Excelsior would be closing for good, many recalling the safe and loving place it provided for the LGBTQ community.

"Thank you for creating this space where we've all made some amazing friends — many of whom will be lifelong," one Facebook user, D.J. Paris wrote on the post. "Thanks for my home away from home, and for all the amazing memories. Best of luck to all of you."

Another Facebook user, Leonardo Randazzo, added that he remembers when the bar opened back in 1999.

"I am broken hearted now," he said. "I have established many friends from that place. I hope you know that this place will always be a touchstone for LennyPalooza and Tonyfaire shindigs. All great things must come to an end, but the memories will never fade. In other words, thank you."

The business is the latest in several longtime Park Slope spots that are closing down.

Popular watering hole Kings Beer Hall shut its doors on April 30, although owners hinted that the bar might be opening somewhere else soon.

The Old Carriage Inn, a longtime staple on Seventh Avenue, closed its doors for good on St. Patrick's Day after 35 years in the neighborhood. The family-owned bar, which first opened in 1975, had sold its building and couldn't afford to stay and rent the space, owner Dorothy Waggelman said.

Another Seventh Avenue staple The Clay Pot announced just a week before The Old Carriage Inn that it would be closing its Brooklyn space after 50 years. The jewelry store will focus on its Manhattan location, instead, owners said.

Earlier this year, The Pacific Bar announced that it would close down after 12 years in the neighborhood and, last spring, a grocer that had been in the area for nearly five decades shutdown.