ESZETT SITE STAYS ‘IN THE FAMILY’
EX-MANAGER WILL TURN SPACE INTO A LESBIAN WINE BAR
ON E of Silver Lake’s stripmall gems poured its last glass of wine and served its last order of salsa macha wings on Jan. 30. Eszett, a natural-wine bar with an inventive food menu and some of the city’s best — and most subversive — hot sauce, has closed, but the spirit of the space will live on. The Ruby Fruit, a lesbian wine bar from some of Eszett’s staff, is set to open there in midFebruary.
“There is no denying that this is a hard task — a really tough act to follow,” said Mara Herbkersman, former general manager of Eszett and half of the Ruby Fruit’s ownership. “It’s been highly emotional.”
One day, Herbkersman asked if her coworker, server Emily Bielagus, would ever want to open a lesbian bar with her. Bielagus didn’t miss a beat. Lesbian bar spaces have dwindled into the mere dozens across the country, and next month the duo hopes to reopen the space as L.A.’s first permanent lesbian bar since the Oxwood Inn’s closure in 2017 — building off the foundation built by Sabrina and Spencer Bezaire, the husband-and-wife team behind Eszett.
“We know what we’re stepping into,” said Bielagus. “We are taking over a very beloved space. We’re very grateful to them, and we know they’re big shoes to fill. We’re also very aware of the history of the lesbian bar, as a concept, honoring the lineage of the people who’ve come before us.”
As general manager of Eszett and a longtime friend of the Bezaires, Herbkersman knows the space and the operations intimately, especially how to make use of the cramped but capable charcoal-oven kitchen. She’s hoping to employ this knowledge at the Ruby Fruit, opting for a slightly more casual setting and a noreservations policy, to help it succeed where Eszett couldn’t — though not for lack of trying.
The Bezaires had dreamed for years of opening their own restaurant. After careers in the industry at the likes of L&E Oyster Bar and Highland Park Brewery, they finally opened Eszett as a kind of elegant but approachable neighborhood wine bar in December 2019. With only three months of normal operations before the pandemic’s first closures, they felt they never had a chance to get their business off the ground. In late 2022, they decided to call it quits.
Spencer Bezaire said, “We’re so happy for Mara and Emily to be able to do their own thing that I honestly feel that if all this was to get them to this point, it makes me feel like it was all worth it.”
In November they approached Herbkersman with the prospect of taking over the restaurant’s lease and buying out the equipment: If the Bezaires were going to sell, they wanted to to keep it in the family and help much of the staff maintain their jobs. The news was gutting; Herbkersman views Sabrina Bezaire as a kind of mentor and the guiding voice who introduced her to the world of natural wine. It presented an opportunity, but one she would rather not take, given the cost.
When the dust settles, the Bezaires hope to focus on their hot sauce retail line, which is still available via sbezhotsauce.com, and maybe consult or pop up elsewhere. And, of course, they’re looking forward to supporting L.A.’s first new lesbian bar in years.
Bielagus moved to L.A. shortly before the pandemic after 15 years in New York City, where she held a range of jobs and aspirations — one of which was the dream of opening a lesbian bar. Before she’d moved to L.A. she was already aware of the city’s dearth of lesbian-owned spaces; a fan of docuseries and website the Lesbian Bar Project, she’d been aware of the dwindling locations across the country.
Los Angeles, for what it’s worth, has a thriving lesbian party scene: Lez Croix, Divorce and Bar Subaru pop up regularly. The Ruby Fruit’s owners themselves had thrown occasional lesbian nights at Eszett — called Leszette. Their pop-up evolved into a roving pop-up series called Big Al’s: a concept that felt at its heart like more of a dive bar than a wine bar, hence the pivot for the bricks-andmortar, which takes its name from Rita Mae Brown’s 1973 novel “Rubyfruit Jungle.”
The Ruby Fruit is meant to be a neighborhood bar and a home base, “like a Cheers, but for lesbians,” Bielagus says.
The kitchen will be composed entirely of women. The wine program, while it will remain natural, will most likely see a focus on Austrian and Eastern European wines.