Purple Parrot Bar

The Purple Parrot on Rehoboth Avenue is Rehoboth Beach's oldest-running gay bar and the venue that best represents the dive bar tradition in the town's gay nightlife — a deliberately unpretentious, no-cover, accessible bar that serves the full range of the community without regard for dress code, age, or how long someone has been coming to Rehoboth. The Rehoboth Avenue location, on the main commercial strip rather than Baltimore Avenue's concentrated gay block, makes the Purple Parrot the most geographically accessible gay bar in town and the one most likely to be encountered by visitors who are exploring the city before they have found Baltimore Avenue. The interior is the classic American gay dive bar: pool table, video screens, strong pours, and a crowd that ranges from long-established regulars to first-time visitors who have wandered in on a summer evening. The Purple Parrot's role in the Rehoboth gay ecosystem is as the leveller — the bar that serves everyone, regardless of income, age, or social position, in the tradition of the great American gay neighbourhood bar.