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It’s long past midnight, and The Parrot at 1030 E. Main St. in Lakeland is packed wall to wall.
Saturday night means drag. On Aug. 15, the theme was Moulin Rouge. A six-foot papier-mâché circus elephant loomed over the dance floor next to a signature red windmill.
Unlike most other drag bars, there isn’t a stage at The Parrot. This is key, says owner Richard “Dick” Dunn. “The queens here have to work. They have to interact with the crowd.”
“Lady Marmalade” by Christina Aguilera and Lil’ Kim interrupts Dunn. Hoots. Howls. Screeches. The queens emerge from behind a tinsel curtain. The audience waves bills at them. They pout and strut through the crowd, led by host and Parrot veteran, Allegra Williams.
“Drag in Lakeland is not to be dismissed,” Allegra says after the show. “This bar is like a beacon … it builds legends.”
Dunn claims at least twenty major drag acts started with The Parrot, including RuPaul stars Alexis Mateo and Jocelyn Summers. He laughs when he admits he can’t afford these acts anymore: RuPaul girls charge at least $7,000 per-appearance, but he doesn’t hold it against them — new queens flock to The Parrot each year.
The 21+ bar is open Tuesday through Sunday from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m., hosting karaoke on Thursdays, stand-up comedy, and drag shows on Fridays and Saturdays.
A ‘tolerated’ oasis since 1969
Originally known as The Green Parrot and then Pulse until new owners went back to their roots in 2020, The Parrot may just be Florida’s oldest operating gay bar. It’s hosted drag shows for over 50 years and has been an oasis for Lakeland’s LGBTQ+ community since at least 1969, when homosexuality was still a felony crime in Florida.
Bartender Mike “Big Daddy” Burdette remembers first visiting The Parrot in 1976. He was 19.
“I was scared to death, just like the average one that’s never seen stuff like this,” recalls Burdette. “It was very different back then.”
By 1976, consensual same sex activity had been downgraded to a misdemeanor offense in Florida. It still carried a $500 fine and up to 60 days in jail.
In February 1977, The Ledger ran a three-part series about homosexuality in Polk County.
In the first article, which featured The Green Parrot, the city’s then-Chief of Police Herbert Straley said he considered homosexuality “a crime against nature, morality, and Christian ethics. We as police officers cannot and will not turn our heads from it.”
According to the reporting, “at best (Straley) can be said ‘to tolerate’ The Green Parrot’s existence.”
Rumors of vandalism, riots, and police raids surround The Parrot’s early history.
“Don’t pay attention to none of that,” Burdette says today, incredulous. “Ain’t none of that happened here.”
Police records imply Burdette is right. From 1960 to 1980, the Lakeland Police Department investigated two crimes at The Green Parrot: the theft of a banner and vandalism involving, in true Polk County fashion, oranges thrown through the bar’s windows.
What happens at The Parrot, stays at The Parrot
David Johnson, professor and LGBT history specialist at the University of South Florida, says gay bars like The Green Parrot have been an “open secret” in Florida since the 1940s.
“I think we have a false notion that everything gay was ‘in the closet’ before Stonewall or before gay marriage,” says Johnson.
Burdette says that from its opening, everyone knew what The Green Parrot was.
“It’s very clear it was a gay bar,” he says. “You had jokes in schools — I heard about this place in the ninth grade.”
John, a former bartender at The Green Parrot, told The Ledger in 1977 that the bar operated under an unspoken creed: what’s said, done, and heard in The Parrot stays there.
At the time, he said he served a lot of doctors, nurses, lawyers, and “a judge or two.” But he told the paper, “The people who frequent The Parrot are a close-knit group … They’re a fraternity of friends who look after each other.”
Today, that spirit endures. “We’ve had a lot of celebrities,” says Burdette, refusing to say who. “Every walk of life comes in here.”
“Usually the ones that were raising hell back in the day were sitting here having a drink a month later because they finally accepted themselves.”
A crowd that makes us feel confident
Shortly after the opening catwalk, a novice queen begins a routine to a bass-heavy R&B number. It’s a loose interpretation of the Moulin Rouge theme but the crowd is ecstatic, stuffing bills into their waistband.
The patrons are a mix of men and women of all ages and ethnicities. A handful of immaculately dressed Parrot veterans in their sixties watch from the front row.
Lakeland “has changed dramatically to be more accepting,” says Allegra, who grew up in Polk County. “But of course, I am cautious of my surroundings while I am performing in drag.”
Allegra, like many in the LGBTQ+ community, considers laws passed in 2023 that ban minors from drag shows and Gov. Ron DeSantis’s insistence that drag be considered an “adult live performance” as a coded attack on spaces like The Parrot.
“I do find the political climate to be very uneasy, but I do think it has brought the community closer together, to watch out and stick up for each other.”
“It’s [The Parrot’s] crowd that makes us feel confident,” she continues. “There’s like some layline vortex here. There’s an energy.”
“I feel like I’m at home. It truly has the biggest place in my heart.”
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