An LGBTQ+ bar and event space in Asheville, North Carolina that was destroyed by Hurricane Helene is reopening, and its owners are promising to be "bigger, gayer, and louder" than ever.
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Day Trip, owned by Brandon Davis and his husband, Davie, had to close after just 31 days in business, leaving the two with over $200,000 in loans and no source of income. Four months later, the couple is preparing to reopen at a new location "twice as big as what we had before."
"Once we hit our GoFundMe goal, we knew that we had to get back up and running as soon as possible," Davis tells The Advocate. "With everything going on in North Carolina and everything going on in California, it's nice to know you can come back and you can come back stronger."
The couple wasn't expecting to go viral, but the donations came pouring in — a large share from LGBTQ+ people who expressed their solidarity. Davis says it made them "feel more of a part of the community," which made them want to give back. They specifically hope to do more events for queer youth in the future, since "so many teenagers donated to our GoFundMe."
Though a space double the size of their first location is "a lot to take on," it allows Day Trip to open a full cafe alongside their cocktail bar, and host even larger events. Davis promises that "we're going to be bigger, we're going to be gayer, we're going to be louder."
"I don't want to put anyone's money in a situation where I'm doing it half-assed. I want to do it right and I want people who donated to be like, 'This is why I donated,'" he says. "I want to represent not only the Asheville community, but just the queer community, because if they didn't step up for me, we would have lost our house. We wouldn't have been able to reopen."
Davis says that he experienced a form of tunnel vision after his business was destroyed and his home became unlivable. While the support felt like a "good dream," the situation his family was living was like a "nightmare." Rebuilding Day Trip was "the only thing that kept me occupied."
"I'm so grateful for all the people who just kept lifting us up during that time, because it was almost too much for me to lift myself up," Davis says. "I feel like if I didn't have that to focus on, I would have just sunk into a really dark place."
"It's weird to have a conversation during the natural disaster or during a traumatic event like that, as opposed to when you're months out of it," he continues. "Even though we had so much constant news being shown to us on our phones, it was like we hadn't processed any of it yet. We were reading what was happening, but we weren't really understanding deeply what was happening."
Now, Davis feels like "it's the same thing in L.A." as communities are still grappling with devastating wildfires. Though the disaster is occurring on the other side of the country, Davis feels connected to the people there as they experience similar losses to him. He believes that it reflects how "nowhere feels safe."
"It's gonna get worse, [natural disasters] are gonna get more frequent, they're gonna get more devastating, more traumatizing," he says. "When are people gonna wake up? ... Eventually you're going to be the video people are watching, because nowhere is safe if we don't act on it."
Asheville, like Day Trip, is still rebuilding over 100 days later. Davis says that at their old location, it still "looks like the hurricane just happened yesterday" with collapsed buildings and bridges, cars abandoned in the mud, and debris hanging from the trees. While the rest of the country moves on, Hurricane Helene is "going to be something that sticks with us for forever."
Davis, like the people in Los Angeles, "didn't know what to do" when disaster struck. All the community knew in the following days was that "they needed to band together to help who they can." Now, as Day Trip prepares to reopen in April, he knows first-hand that recovery isn't just possible — it's inevitable.
"If you have the support behind you, then you can do anything," Davis says. "And sometimes that just takes you asking for it."
