Tom Wood has owned the Good Friends Bar in the French Quarter since 1987. In that time, he’s built the two-story Dauphine Street watering hole into one of the city’s most popular gay bars and a staple for the community during Mardi Gras, Southern Decadence and New Orleans’ other major events.
But five decades is a long time to run a bar, Wood said on Wednesday. That’s why early next year, he’s putting it up for auction.
"The time I used to go the bed is now the time I get up in the morning, 4 a.m.," said Wood, 71, who now spends most of his time at his home in Diamondhead, Mississippi, or on the golf course. "Riding the crest of a wave for 50 years is tough; it's time for someone else to take over."
Good Friends, which calls itself the Queen's Head Pub on the second floor, covers about 3,000 square feet on the corner of Dauphine and St. Ann streets.
The original structure was a 19th century Creole cottage that was redesigned by architect Collins C. Diboll Jr. in 1920, when a second floor was added, according to the Historic New Orleans Collection.
Live auction
Michael Wilkinson, a realtor at French Quarter Real Estate, is handling the sale, which is set to take place on Jan. 7, 2025. He said it will be a live auction at the premises with a minimum opening bid of $6,555,000. That bar itself is valued at $3 million, and the property makes up the rest.
Wilkinson said the last French Quarter bar he can recall being sold was Oz New Orleans, another popular gay haunt that was the subject of a bidding war between Sidney Torres IV and Kishore "Mike" Motwani nine years ago. Motwani ended up with that Bourbon Street property, paying just over $8 million.
Before Wood bought Good Friends and remodeled it, adding the upstairs gallery and balcony, it operated as another gay gathering place called Louisiana Purchase, said Beaux Church, CEO of Wood Enterprises.
"There's been a lot of interest in buying Good Friends, especially in the gay community," said Church. "We've had a couple of regulars already pretending they've bought it."
Wood came to New Orleans in the early 1970s as a teen after following the hippy trail around the U.S. from his home in the New Mexico border town of Deming. His travels had taken him to the Celebration of Life rock festival at McCrea, Louisiana, in 1971, to hear artists like Chuck Berry and Stephen Stills.
He stopped in New Orleans to make some money and had to buy a new pair of shoes for his first job as a waiter at Marti's restaurant on Dumaine Street, as his colorful hippy clogs wouldn't do. His side gig dealing antiques made him enough money for the deposit to buy?Café Lafitte in Exile on Bourbon Street —?widely thought to be the longest continually operating gay bar in the U.S. since the end of prohibition in 1933 — as he began to put down roots in the city.
His other business interests now also include the Clover Grill also on Bourboon Street, Rawhide Lounge on Burgundy Street, as well as Mary's Ace Hardware store on South Rampart Street, various residential properties in New Orleans and a building he acquired during the pandemic in Las Vegas.
Wood said he has been asked by many interested parties over the years if he would want to sell Good Friends, so he is starting with that property, and then if that goes well he will likely look to sell the others.
"It was the pandemic that really wore me out," he said. "Stopping and starting and stopping again, and trying to keep everyone together. We lost a lot of people and you lose momentum."
With the French Quarter bars and other businesses, Wood said he currently employs about 100.
"My estate is going to be such a mess if I don't sort it out," Wood said. "Now is the right time."