La Monocle: raising funds to open South London's first Lesbian and FLINTA bar

Despite some deeming London the LGBTQ+ capital of Europe, only two dedicated Lesbian and FLINTA bars exist in the city: the long-enduring She Bar in Soho and the more recently opened La Camionera in Dalston. South of the river, the community has been making do with pop-up events, and the need for a more permanent space is evident. 

La Monocle has been running pop-up bar, film screening, and speed dating events across South London since late 2024 and are now raising funds to open a permanent venue. I sat down for a chat with founder Zoe Murphy, who runs La Monocle with her partner Aimee. 

"Look at us all here, we need a bar!"

An art graduate living in Camberwell, Zoe explained how she had been looking for a lesbian bar thinking it would be a fun place to work, and had been shocked that there were none. Down a rabbit hole about historical signalling fashion, she had come across Le Monocle, a luxurious lesbian bar that had been open in 1920s Paris, and the idea for La Monocle was born. 

La Monocle’s early events were heavily inspired by the 1920s Parisian bar. Zoe and her team used archive images from the bar in their early posters, and their first event was 1920s-dress themed. However, they have dropped this influence now. 

“I was having a walk around the venue; there was a mass majority of femme-presenting people and not many mascs, and I thought, ‘Would I go to an event that was 1920s-dress themed? Absolutely not, there's nothing in my wardrobe that would suit that'… the more rules you put on something, the more exclusionary something can become accidentally.”

What La Monocle has morphed to become is a relentless effort to create a space for South London’s lesbian and FLINTA community that serves everyone. In this way it diverges from the 1920s bar: "[Le Monocle] was a beautiful bar, but there were so many problems with it. It was essentially a white-only bar; it was classist and inaccessible for normal queer people, and that's not something I want to communicate in this at all, the opposite.”

In the year and a bit since, their events have included pop-ups in venues including Peckham Pelican and Little Louis, film club screenings at the beautiful Cinema Museum, and they partner with King Cupid to run speed dating events. 

Their first event saw 350 people turn up in the first two hours, and they had to begin turning people away. “Now pretty much every single event will sell out at least a week before."

This weekend they will be opening their three-nights-a-week pop-up bar at South London Louis, and they are now taking reservations. Zoe explained that it’s table service only because of venue rules which mean they have a cap on capacity, and that if they don’t have table service they will have hundreds of people turning up. 

"I'm gonna be behind the bar, probably making 100 drinks a minute.” 

As always, accessibility is a huge priority. The venue is wheelchair accessible, has good public transport links, and accessible prices. Zoe said people can also email them with a specific need, and they will work their hardest to accommodate it. 

This residency is a huge step for them towards their goal of opening a permanent venue. At the moment they are all volunteers, using all the money made from tickets and merch to pay singers and DJs properly, and putting the rest back into growing La Monocle. 

Zoe talked about how La Camionera’s journey had inspired them. “It's hard to not mention them. They were a pop-up for like 40 people, and then it just blew up, and they ended up being able to fundraise for the money to open it. I wanted to do the same thing."

"We are going to open a bar at some point. I will keep doing these events until we have enough money to do it. I think the residency is a big step. All of the bar sales will be ours. If it does really well, then we can do that for a couple of months, and opening a bar might not be as far away as we thought it was." 

I asked how people can support them towards this goal. 

"Feedback is important; I want people to tell us if they don't like the events. If you don't like them, what can we do?… If people want a bar in South London and trust us to do it, then absolutely come to events, speak about it, be active, we are always looking for volunteers to help. Commenting and liking posts is also really important.”

Next Monday they will be launching a crowdfunding page on Indiegogo. Every penny donated will be one step closer to getting South London the FLINTA bar it deserves.

From Monday you can donate here.