From a pair of ruby slippers to a former patron’s painting of a naked woman, the walls talk at Tulsa’s Yellow Brick Road Pub. In some cases, literally — and loudly.
“It’s a gay bar, you’re going to run into your ex here,” said bar manager Val Binkley. “There were some lesbians getting mad at each other and writing sh-t on the bathroom wall, so I threw up a sign that says, ‘Quit using my walls to talk sh-t! This is a safe space.’”
The midtown bar has delivered on its reputation of serving Tulsa’s LGBTQ+ community through generational change, political shifts and a 2022 fire that left the building in ruins. It stands out as one of the country’s 30-some remaining lesbian bars, earning the dive a nod in the newly published “Lesbian Bar Chronicles.”
This pair of ruby red slippers has been on display in YBR Pub as long as anyone can remember. Credit: Tim Landes / Tulsa Flyer 
This painting inside YBR Pub has long been a patron favorite and a popular conversation piece. Credit: Tim Landes / Tulsa Flyer 
Signage for Queer Lit Collective beside a leg lamp on a book shelf in YBR Pub. Credit: Tim Landes / Tulsa Flyer 
This artwork made from bottle caps has been a longtime fixture of YBR Pub. Credit: Tim Landes / Tulsa Flyer
“We’re gonna say it’s a lesbian bar, we’re going to brag about that, obviously, but the No. 1 rule: Everybody should feel safe here,” Binkley said. “Every single person.”
Known to regulars and Google Maps as YBR, its survival and rebirth was anything but guaranteed. The bar opened under its current name in 2000. The space at 2630 E. 15th St. featured low ceilings, a semi-permanent cloud of cigarette smoke, a dart machine in a questionably safe location and a massive cage that Hannah Jackson, co-founder of Queer Women’s Collective, recalls using to perform backflips.
Over the years, there were often rumors about the bar being sold to new owners and what it could become next, Jackson says. But she and fellow regulars always believed YBR would hold on.
“I think queer people are resilient,” she said. “At the end of the day, we want to have our cave, and we will overcome whatever it is.”
And overcome it has. The bar was considered a “total loss” after an accidental electrical fire forced YBR to close in July 2022. Some worried it would never open again.
But Tulsans rallied. With donations to an online fundraiser and help from volunteers, the bar reopened by June 2023. That energy continued into Binkley’s tenure, which began later that year. One example: After she posted a callout for help building bookshelves to house a QueerLit Collective library, a half dozen people — including Jackson — answered.
“We constantly are raising money for something, or somewhere, or someone,” Binkley said.
She attributes much of the bar’s growing reputation to its robust social media presence and event calendar, with clothing swaps and free pizza appearing alongside DJ dance parties and karaoke nights. New faces from near and far often walk through the doors — a far cry from when Binkley started.
“All the time, you would hear people be like, ‘I had no idea this was here,’” she said. “It’s awesome now. We’re hearing that less and less. Now they’re like, ‘I’ve been waiting to come here.’”
Longtime YBR customer Jenny Fisher says Binkley herself is a key reason behind its resurgence. Her memory of orders and faces keeps regulars coming back.
“Sometimes just having that warm welcome, it’s what makes you feel extra seen,” Fisher said. “I’ve been coming here before, and you’d be like, just one in a crowd. I know she takes a lot of pride in knowing everyone who comes here and remembering their taste, remembering what they like. It goes a really long way in building community.”
Binkley likes to say she and YBR have “been growing together in our gayness.” Within a year of coming out in her early 30s, she became the face of Tulsa’s only lesbian bar — not to mention the bar’s first lesbian manager in a decade.
Her first move was adding “no place like home” and “yay for gay” to the bottom of receipts as a reminder to customers of where they stand. Next up was hiring more LGBTQ+ staff to work behind the bar and at the door.
Three years after reopening, Binkley has watched YBR’s clientele evolve. More transgender Tulsans and non-alcohol drinkers are now regulars. Many hang out at the bar to “escape,” Binkley says, as they struggle with homelessness, couch surfing and job searches.
Part of being a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community is asking customers to take political talk outside and away from the bar, Binkley says.
“For a lot of people, this is the only place they feel like they can be themselves, and you don’t need that around,” she said. “We’re not causing fights over that. I refuse to allow that to happen.”
Binkley would love to expand the bar’s physical footprint so it can abandon its playful status as “the tiniest dance floor in Oklahoma.” Like many other businesses across Tulsa, YBR must first weather the impact of ongoing road construction and street closures. Bar staff have already noticed slower foot traffic.
But Pride Month — both during national celebrations in June and Tulsa’s celebration in October — tends to draw crowds. Among them are members of the Queer Women’s Collective, the monthly meetup group and “traveling bar” Jackson co-founded. The group visits YBR a few times a year, hosting its Pride Month happy hour there in early June.
When Jackson and a friend she’s known since her early 20s are asked how they met, they often reply: “YBR.” Many of Tulsa’s LGBTQ+ bars have closed in the two decades since, alongside a parallel surge in anti-LGBTQ+ political rhetoric and policies across the country.
For Jackson, that makes preserving YBR even more crucial.
“I weirdly feel like YBR is as necessary now as it was when I was 21,” Jackson said.
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