Meet Josh & John Franklin-Wolfe

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Josh & John Franklin-Wolfe a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Josh & John, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?

As a Colorado Springs native who came out of the closet in the 90s, I know firsthand the type of struggles this community had to face and overcome. The purpose of Icons started brewing back in High School, at Homecoming, as bullying reached a new level and derogatory names were spray painted on my car. I didn’t realized it then. All I wanted was to get out of “the hate state” as quickly as possible. Little did I know, years later those incidents would spark an idea that quickly became a movement and so much more than just a gay bar.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

As former Broadway performers, we knew a little about entertainment. What we didn’t have much experience in was the service industry. However, we knew we were passionate about talent, community and culture. We opened Icons, “that gay bar with the singing bartenders,” in the fall of 2020. Yes, the middle of the pandemic. Like I said, we were Broadway performers and suddenly found ourselves without an industry to count on. We decided to take some time off in Josh’s hometown of Colorado Springs and were quickly inspired by the growth of this city and the queer community in particular. One problem though. When you googled gay bar downtown Colorado Springs… nothing came up. Not one establishment for the queer community. As a native, that didn’t sit right with Josh. We took what we knew from our years in the entertainment industry, found the most incredible local singers who quickly became like family, and with a little bit of class and a lot of camp, we created Icons. Through our artwork, entertainment, bathrooms, specialty cocktails and culture, we celebrate the queer Icons who have represented us and fought for us throughout the course of history.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

We realized pretty early on that due to our background, people were going to underestimate us. We also realized that as professional actors, we’ve been running our own business our whole lives. The difference here is that WE were the business and now we were creating an entity that serves an entire community. Still, the resilience required to make it as an actor certainly served us well in creating Icons. I think curiosity is another quality that was helpful. We knew nothing about how to navigate city permitting, commercial buildings, liquor licenses, employees…you name it. But staying curious and hungry to gain the knowledge required to do this crazy thing kept us on course. The final quality I’d say was authenticity. We didn’t try to do a club because that’s not who we are. We didn’t do a sports bar. We made a bar that we loved where people celebrated being queer through song. And sang them very, very well.

What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?

In December of last year a neighboring business had a fire and we suffered smoke damage. At first, it seemed we’d be closed for a couple weeks while we had everything cleaned. A couple weeks turned into a couple months and a landlord who deemed the building unusable. We now faced the option of calling it quits or pivoting. It’s been the most challenging year for us and we’ve faced some truly difficult decisions. Ultimately, we felt our establishment meant too much to this community, and they meant too much to us for us just to throw in the towel. Instead, we did an even crazier thing and started a campaign to buy our own building and be our own landlords. We closed on a property just a block away from our original location and are in the process of building out Icons, again. This path only revealed itself with the tremendous support from the city, the community and a hefty bank loan. But, it’ll be worth it? We’ll let you know. Haha.

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