Val’s Coffee Lounge: The 1950s Gay and Lesbian Safe Haven In Melbourne

Val Eastwood, the owner of a Melbourne coffee lounge in the 1950s that was a haven for gay and lesbian people, is the focus of a new book, ‘She and Her Pretty Friend: The Hidden History of Australian Women Who Love Women’ by Danielle Scrimshaw. 

This Melbourne coffee lounge was unlike any other we see today and is believed to be Australia’s first gay and lesbian venue.

Eastwood was a businesswoman from a young age even running a dance school in Ivanhoe in her late teens. Val’s Coffee Lounge in Swanston Street in Melbourne was purchased by the then 24-year-old in 1951 and was located at Swanston St across from Town Hall. 

Coffee And Community

Eastwood created the space for people to get good coffee, taste European cuisine and meet their community. 

Scrimshaw told the Herald Sun that the place was an opportunity for people to “meet other gay men and women and have this kind of epiphany that they weren’t the only person in the world to be queer.” 

This two-story venue became popular amongst theatre lovers, artists and gay and lesbian people to express themselves however they desired with Eastwood being a leading figure in the community. 

Described as an “outrageous” character, Eastwood would wear masculine Italian-made suits, topped with a homburg and bright lipstick. Her sense of camp style was translated into the lounge with its royal blue carpet, mauve accents, coloured lighting and a grand piano in the corner of the entrance. 

A Sanctuary

“The existence of these queer venues like the coffee lounge is so fascinating because the 1950s was what the historian, Graham Willett, has described as the darkest decade for the homosexual community,” said Scrimshaw.

With homosexuality still a crime in Australia in the 1950s, Scrimshaw noted the stigma of being queer would cause people to lose their jobs, be disowned by families and friends or be arrested for indecency regularly. 

Eastwood said the coffee lounge was a sanctuary for the gay and lesbian community, in what was conservative Melbourne in the 1950s.