La Cueva

About this place La Cueva

La Cueva is widely regarded as the longest-running gay bar in Rio de Janeiro — a Copacabana institution that has been serving the city's LGBTQ+ community since the 1960s, making it one of the oldest continuously operating gay venues in South America. The name (Spanish for "the cave") and the intimate basement-style atmosphere date from the bar's origins in an era when gay venues needed the discretion of subterranean spaces. Today La Cueva operates as a neighbourhood bar — small, informal, and deeply embedded in the social fabric of Copacabana's LGBTQ+ life. The regulars are long-term residents of the neighbourhood, people who have been drinking here for decades alongside occasional visitors who come specifically to experience one of the historic institutions of Brazilian gay life. The bar makes no claim to modernity or spectacle — it is what it has always been, which is a meeting place for the community that has sustained it for more than 60 years. For visitors with an interest in the history of LGBTQ+ Rio, La Cueva is an essential stop.