The Pumping Station

If you are looking for an experience and are tired of the run of the mill clubs. This is it. Very unique. The bar owner is an absolute ham. Enjoy!

Howdy folks. How's everyone on Planet Yelp doing? Nasty Nathanial here and it's time for another one of my "Nasty" reviews. I'm going to kick this review off by asking a single question. Where do you think the hottest gay bar in the south is? Well, if you wanna find out, I suggest ya all get to pumping some gasoline into this spaceship because we are heading across the galaxy to a place called The Pumping Station in Memphis, Tennessee. My friend, and fellow 1st Amendment Activist Silent Citizen, and I had just come into Memphis from Nashville so I could fulfill one of my lifelong dreams of visiting Graceland. Yes I'm a big Elvis fan. So after being on the road for the past 3 and 1/2 hours, what we both needed was a good stiff drink. But where would go to get us a good "stiff" drink? The place would turn out to be a groovy bar The Pumping Station. At first we had a bit of a hard time finding the place. Google maps kept telling us we were there. But where exactly was The Pumping Station? There is no big sign with letters lighted up bright with the words The Pumping Station. I wonder if it's that way on purpose. I must remember that we are in the south. The one thing that identified it for me was the rainbow flag in the window. Once I saw that I knew that we had the right place. Walking inside I fell in love with the place right away. The walls might as well of had the words "Dive Bar" written all over it. But please don't take that the wrong way. This is a good thing. For those of you who have read my past reviews will know that I am a huge fan of the classic American dive bar. Unfortunately, in many places they are a dying breed. But apparently that is not the case here in Memphis. The place was not too busy when Silent Citizen and I arrived. We were able to find a seat up at the bar right away. That's when we were greeted by two friendly bar tenders. One of them was a tall fellow with a shaved head and sporting Mustache Pete's stache. This would earn him the nickname Monopoly Man. The other one was shorter with dark hair and a smile that could light up the darkest alley at night. I would soon learn that his name was Gabriel. I'll just refer to him in this review as simply Gabe. Turns out that this was Gabe's first night working and Monopoly Man was training him. Oh lovely. Now let's talk about Gabe's margarita This guy mixed up a spectacular margarita. I mean this thing was absolutely fabulous. It had the right mixture of all the ingredients and just the right amount of alcohol to where it gave me a good buzz, but at the same time wasn't too overbearing. Plus he remembered to put salt on the rim. So many bartenders forget to do this and it's annoying. Especially when your paying $13 at a place like Good Times At Davey Wayne's. But that wasn't the case here with Gabe at The Pumping Station. Best of all it didn't cost $13. In addition to the fabulous margarita I was sucking on, I was enjoying some really groovy conversation with Gabe. I could've stayed at this place all night. But my friend wanted to go check out Beale Street. But that's ok for we'd return the following night. That's when Silent Citizen would meet the ever so "friendly" Junior. But I think I'll leave that story out of this review to protect the guilty. So I'm gonna go ahead and wrap this review up by saying that the best part about my time in Memphis, besides from Graceland, was my time at The Pumping Station. Seriously I loved this place. The atmosphere was groovy, the staff(Gabe and Monopoly Man) were extremely friendly & welcoming, and the drinks were made stiff and they didn't cost an arm and a leg. Who could ask for more? Well, maybe a massage from Junior? Nah. I'll pass. But the next time I pass through Memphis, I'll definitely be stopping at The Pumping Station. Until next time, may the margaritas continue to be fab and Gabe's award winning smile continue to light up those dark alley's. Happy trails. NASTY NATHANIAL

I grew up in Memphis but didn't have very much experience with the bar scene since I moved once I hit 18. Now that I'm back in action, a few high school friends and I were looking to try the gay bar scene in memphis and this was recommended to us! Everyone here was very friendly, and there were plenty of drink specials making prices very, very good in my opinion. It's also pretty spacious and not too loud, so it was a good place for us to just hang and catch up, but I should caution: we went on a weekday evening. So I can't speak to the weekend. Would recommend!

Assaulted by manager, also not trans guy friendly.I wish I had lodged a formal complaint at the time, but since I was already dealing with the manager and visiting from out of town, there didn't seem to be an obvious path of recourse.I was checking out queer Memphis on vacation two years ago and at a glance, The Pumping Station seemed exactly like a Memphis version of my home bar. The night I popped in was a super slow night, but the handful of patrons seemed very friendly and it clearly served a positive purpose as a community hub (the only reason the place is getting two stars instead of one).I noticed that bathroom situation seemed pretty rude and misogynistic and not trans guy friendly as the bathroom with the urinals is labels "masters" and the one with the only sit down toilet is labeled "slaves" which automatically labels every woman and trans guy a "slave" and also suggests that all male slaves are like women. But ok, fine, not the first time I've encountered ignorance in the queer community, especially in what is just a not very thought out attempt to be funny. I just don't use the bathroom because as a BDSM top I'm not willing to use a bathroom labeled "slaves" and not being able to use an appropriate bathroom is nothing new for trans people- though I would have held a gay bar to a higher standard and not a lower one. But we are definitely not a perfect people and I still basically like the place at this point.To kill time while my friend and I are drinking our beer, I start talking to a guy behind the bar who turns out to be the manager. He also turns out to be WASTED. I mean, really, really, *really* wasted. Like, even being active in the bar / club scene, I don't normally encounter people this wrecked in public. He is having a lot of trouble speaking, and he can't follow a compound sentence and is going in and out of seeming borderline hostile.Then, for no obvious reason, this guy suddenly reaches in the neck of my shirt and grabs my boob and starts shaking it around. For anyone who is even going to dare to say "maybe he was just joking around", he wasn't, and beyond that grabbing anyone's (much less a trans guy with gender dysphoria) boob isn't a joke (much less by someone very wasted and combative), and for anyone who might think that this falls under the scope of the kind of friendly touchy feely flirting that goes on in gay / leather bars, as someone who has spent many, many years in them, it absolutely was not.And yes, my friend still remembers this very well, as well. For anyone who isn't up on what counts as sexual assault, grabbing someone's boob (and even more so under these aggressive circumstances) is sexual assault, and in this case yet another assailant gets away with it because, internally, since I'm already dealing with the manager there isn't anyone obvious to take it up with, and externally, obviously police aren't even an option and would only make a bad situation actively worse and possibly result in the closure of a badly needed community hub.Ultimately, this had a very negative effect on me. It's too bad that as a trans guy I think about removing my breasts (which, for the record, I love) not to transition, but so that people like him will stop helping themselves to my body.

I just moved to Memphis and went to the pumping Station for the first time tonight. The bartender had such a terrible attitude that I asked to speak with a manager. Apparently, the bartender was the manager on duty. I was taken aback by the awful service and blatant disrespect from the staff. The drinks are overpriced, and the bar is dingy and unkept to say the least. It's hard to believe this place stays open. Don't waste your time on the exorbitantly overpriced drinks and lousy service.. This was definitely a one and done for me.

After we finally called to find out where to park (Kroger parking lot worked well), we love this place! I brought a friend to a Yelp event here, and am so so pleased that we put on our party pants! I love that there's a non-smoking area at the front, and a smoking area *called the Back Door) and patio out back. Sectioned bars work so well to keep flow and satisfy everyone.All the bartenders were excellent, though Dan was my favorite. We met some wonderful men and women and even some folks who were a bit blurry from BBQfest last month. I enjoyed running into some bright-eyed and bushy-tailed lovelies, and honestly have nothing bad to say about this place. The drinks were reasonably priced (use Yelp for check-in offers) and flavorful.I don't know how long this place has been around, but I'm sad I haven't been before!

Some of us old-timers remember the grand days of gay Memphis twenty years ago. One of the highlights was Sunday at the Pipeline (or the "pip-a-lee-nee" as it was affectionately known), the best-known nightspot at this location. When that closed at the end of the nineties, this spot struggled for a few years retaining the clientele. This past December I went into it's legacy, called "the Pumping Station", to meet some old friends and it was good to see a crowd back in its hallowed halls. They have a liquor license now (gone are the days of brown-bagging and set-ups) and they were pouring them stiff and often. A little startling to see hard-core porn playing on the monitors overhead, who knew I was such a prude? I found it a little distracting to say the least when you're stuck in a dull conversation.It was a crowded Saturday night and it was a mixed bag of patrons. Some club kids stopping for a starter-drink, oldtimers, bears, leather, Cordova-married-queens, the works. As usual for Memphis, there wasn't too much attitude, I mean, you're in MEMPHIS for God's sake! You can't be too uppity about that! And that is always refreshing in a humble way.Finally, I was so happy to see one relic of the Pipeline days was still intact: Instead of "men" and "women" on the bathroom doors, it still has "Master" and "Slave". lol.......still makes me laugh.

This place is so dang FUN! Like Robin said, park in the Kroger lot :). They don't have private parking. They are apparently still renovating a few things, but y'all, give this place a try! Theres three different sections, you have the front bar with a pool table and a handful of tables (non-smoking).. which I loved :)! Then you walk out to a little more open bar area that is smoking. At night they do open up the doors to the patio which helps ventilate! And the patio...so fun! Now for the food, their fried mac and cheese bites were delicious. I probably had like 8 which is awkward cause I said I'd only have one, MAX two. So...yikes. They are also a part of project green fork! Such sweethearts. So many regulars. You can tell they are just one big happy family!

First of all, the location is sketchy and the parking is terrible. You have to park in the Kroger parking lot then walk across the parking lot of a fried chicken restaurant to get to the bar. Next, the bartenders sometimes have attitude. They don't always treat their customers as customers. They don't always say "thank you" when they are tipped. The drinks are small and over priced. The set up of the bar is pretty nice even though it is somewhat small. The lighting is nice. There is also a nice spacious patio in the back. The clientele is what is the deal breaker for me. It is very "clicky". There are very few singles there. Nearly everyone is standing around talking in tight little groups. I wouldn't recommend the place for singles to try to meet people.

I'm visiting and wanted to find a nice gay bar to have a drink in. Red flag number one: I called around 7pm and asked if they had a drag show tonight. The person who answered said "no, never here", and they seemed almost grossed out that I would even ask. They said, "you must be thinking about the other bar. We don't do that here." I said fine and asked what time they close. They told me 12. I got to my hotel, checked in and changed/showered quickly. I made my way to this "bar" by 11. I walked in, looked around and saw about 5 people sitting around/by the bar. I moved some chairs around, and sat for a bit. The person working walked over and asked for my ID and my proof of vaccination. I said I was from out of town and didn't have it with me. They looked at me and you could tell they wanted to say it was ok. But there was a person sitting right there who looked over. I told them I had been vaccinated and I could even wear a mask if need be. But I didn't bring my card with me, because I had forgot it. They asked if I had a picture of it, and I said no. They said I couldn't even be inside without it. So I left...I wish I would have been told this over the phone. Instead of waisting my time driving over there and thinking this is where I was going to spend some time. I could have easily looked up another place. Unfortunately, I believe this will be my one and only time attempting to be a customer at this venue. FYI: drag queens and drag shows bring a crowd to ANY bar. You should really look more into that. Don't sound disgusted when a customer asks if you have one. Most people happen to love drag shows. I know I def. do. Would rather rate zero stars, and I don't recommend this place.