By Kevin Ferrisi –
Long before today’s queer nightlife found its footing in trendy bars, established theaters, and organized drag events, Hartford’s Polo Club stood as one of the region’s most vital LGBTQ+ spaces. For many in Connecticut’s queer community, the Polo Club wasn’t just a bar. It was a sanctuary, a proving ground, and a home. The Polo Club played a pivotal role during a time when queer visibility was far less accepted than it is today. Inside those four walls, people found freedom to exist authentically. It was a place where newcomers nervously stepped in seeking community and where longtime regulars forged friendships that lasted decades. For many who came of age in the 90s, and early 2000s, the Polo Club offered something rare: safety, joy, and belonging.
DCJR Events turned the Chez Est in Hartford into a time capsule of Connecticut drag history, pulling a couple of beloved performers out of retirement for a one-night-only Polo Club reunion. The room felt charged from the start, filled with longtime fans who remembered the old Maple Avenue days and younger crowds who had only heard the stories. DCJR Events is known for drawing big audiences, and this night was no different. Lady Tatiana, Grace Nations, Bella Lucia, Gia Rockstar, and host, Miss Polo 2006, Marita Bonita, took the stage like they had never left it. For many, it felt less like a show and more like a homecoming.
The club’s legacy is perhaps felt most strongly in Connecticut’s drag community. Before drag brunches sold out months in advance and local queens filled theaters, the Polo Club gave performers a stage, often their very first one. It was here that countless drag artists experimented with makeup, character, and persona, supported by a crowd that understood the courage it took just to step into the spotlight. The Polo Club was where hidden talents bloomed, where queens learned how to host a room, and where shows became family gatherings.
Domingo Cedeño Jr., founder of DCJR Events, said the reunion show grew out of a simple feeling, he wanted to go back to the place that once felt like home. When he talked about the old Polo Club, he described it the way people talk about a childhood hangout, a place where he and his friends spent Saturday nights drinking Jolly Rancher martinis and watching performers who would later become his chosen family. He still talks to many of them, even after fifteen or twenty years, and the idea of seeing Grace, Gia, Bella, Marita, and Tatiana onstage again felt like stepping into his twenties all over again.
“The Polo Club was my home. I felt safe there. I wanted to bring that feeling back and bring in the people I met, fell in love with, and who became my friends and my family,” explained Domingo. For him, the reunion wasn’t just a show. It was a way to recreate the sense of safety, joy, and connection he felt as a young gay kid walking into the Polo Club for the first time.
Beyond entertainment, the Polo Club served as a cultural hub. It was where the community shared information, mobilized during hardship, celebrated victories, and held space for one another through personal and societal challenges. In times when LGBTQ+ people faced intense discrimination, the club helped build resilience by making room for joy. That’s part of what made it special, even in difficult eras, the Polo Club insisted on celebration.
The building on Maple Avenue has lived many lives, beginning with the little-documented Murray’s Fountain & Lunch in the late 1930s before becoming home to The Hearthstone, the upscale, air-cooled, fox-hunt-muraled restaurant that dominated the space from 1942 to 1995 and attracted everyone from JFK to local power brokers. After The Hearthstone’s quiet final closure, the building transformed again as the Polo Club, a gay bar and cabaret space that operated for two decades and marked a new era of nightlife on Maple Avenue. Since 2017, it has housed Lo Sano Restaurant & Bar, a lively Dominican venue that replaced the old queer haven with karaoke, dancing, and a new kind of community energy.
Though the Polo Club is gone, its legacy echoes in every drag show, every queer gathering, and every safe space that exists in Connecticut today. It remains a reminder of what a community can build when given room to breathe and why preserving queer spaces, old and new, still matters so deeply. DCJR Events succeeded in bringing that same energy and sense of belonging back to life.
DCJR Events, founded by Domingo Cedeño Jr., has been a bi-monthly staple at the Chez Est in Hartford since January 2019, delivering packed nights of live entertainment and standout drag performances every fourth Saturday. The idea took shape after Domingo organized a wildly successful “End of Summer” party on September 22, 2018; the turnout was so strong that Chez Est owner John Pepe approached him about producing a recurring show, setting the stage for what would become DCJR Events.
For Chez Est owner John Pepe, the reunion show was a full-circle moment. Long before he became a club owner, he had spent time behind the decks at the Polo Club, working and DJing while soaking in the energy of Hartford’s drag scene. Seeing the performers he had once supported and the community he had been a part of return to the stage at his own venue brought a sense of nostalgia and continuity, connecting his past experiences with his current role as a hub for Connecticut drag.
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