Restaurants in the Straight World are a gamble. You never know which are gay friendly, and which are homophobic, until you get there.
Except for the Pizza Ranch.
I ate there once when I first moved to the Plains. It has an annoying cowboy theme and a gut-sloshing buffet of deep fried chicken, mashed potatoes, pizza, and frozen custard. A few paltry carrots and cucumbers on the "salad bar."
The other patrons were all obese heterosexual couples with passles of kids.
And it was openly Christian. Bible verses on the walls, Christian music for sale at the front counter, a prominently posted Mission Statement: “To glorify God by positively impacting the world."
There were photos of the staff members who weren't there, engaging in wholesome activities like singing, playing a violin, playing football, fishing, and...um...just posing in a studly fashion.Surely they're hired for their hotness, I thought. This is a male version of Hooters.
The hotness of the staff almost made up for the deplorably unhealthy food and deplorably fundamentalist ambiance. I've been persuaded to return several times by gay friends, who usually say things like "Who cares about their politics, when the eye candy is so incredible?"
Besides, it's rather fun to go undercover, knowing that if the staff and other patrons found out about me, they would either run from the restaurant in terror or pull out a Bible and start screaming about Leviticus.
One false move, and you're history. The deception is the excitement.
One day in the spring of 2015, I wondered, How far can I go without being discovered?
I didn't want to actually get outed, and be banned from the nightly hunk fest for life -- or worse, rile the fundamentalists so much -- Imagine! A sodomite in this holy pizza restaurant! -- that they would move from screaming to punching and kicking.
But how close could I get to the edge?
The full post, with nude photos and sexual situations, is on Tales of West Hollywood.