This year will be the first Nottingham Pride since The Pride Shop on Maid Marian Way opened its doors to the public. More than just a shop, it offers a safe space to the LGTBQ+ community in Nottingham through support groups, events and counselling, as well as a cosy café. We spoke to founder Jake Hook about his motivations for setting up the business and its impact on the city.
In 1978, activist and artist Gilbert Baker created the iconic rainbow flag: an outward symbol of LGBTQ+ rights, identity and pride. 47 years later, the rainbow is used globally and has found an extra home in Nottingham too. On Maid Marian Way, just a hop round the corner from the Kitty Café and Forbidden Planet, is a place with more rainbows than you could imagine: say hello to The Pride Shop.
Surrounded by a plethora of headbands, bags and badges, co-founder Jake Hook tells me how he set up the space along with his partner Graham, after running the shop online for several years. As I glance around, it’s hard to believe that this was once a stained and worn-down unit left unused since 2018, until it opened its doors at the end of November last year.
The unit has two spaces, Jake explains. The downstairs space hosts the shop and café, with a community notice board, lending library and a range of board games. The upstairs space offers support groups, events and counselling through a community interest company (CIC) called Pride Space, with income generated from the shop helping to support free and low-cost counselling for the LGBTQ+ community.
With The Pride Shop already thriving online, ‘Why host this in-person space?’ I wonder aloud.
“We spoke to the Gilbert Baker Foundation about selling pride merchandise,” says Jake. “They were quite surprised because [the Pride Flag] is so used and not many people come and say ‘actually can we use this?’. They said ‘Yes, of course! He gifted it to the community.’ When we walk past the rainbow, we instantly know what it means - we haven’t had to do any marketing for that. So in a way, because we're not having to do that, we should be putting our money into something that’s positive for our community. That's why Pride Space exists. I want to help people. I want to make sure that it's here, for Nottingham.”
We needed a space that wasn't just a pub or a club. That could be something specific for LGBTQ+ people and that was a safe, welcoming place they could be themselves. Somewhere that didn't have alcohol as its main driver or dating at its core
The café offers an appetising array of sweet treats and lunchtime bites alongside your cuppa, including New York Style rainbow cookies and posh cheddar, sundried tomato and pickle sourdough cobs – all at prices I haven’t seen for at least five years. Sit in a chair to the left of the counter and you’ll have a cheeky neon sign above your head that reads: ‘I can’t even think straight’ - a photo opportunity that many grin and take up as they call in.
On the café counter, there’s a jar of wooden heart tokens. In need of a free coffee? Pick up a heart and pass it over, no questions asked. Able to donate a coffee? Add a token to your order, and the cost of another drink will be added to your bill, for someone else to pick up when they need it. This simple gesture sums up the ethos of the place: we are a community, we are here for each other, we give and receive support when we need it.
“I think that I've always had the ambition to have a coffee shop,” Jake says. “It’s just the heart of the community, particularly now. We needed a space that wasn't just a pub or a club. That could be something specific for LGBTQ+ people and that was a safe, welcoming place they could be themselves. Somewhere that didn't have alcohol as its main driver or dating at its core. Don’t get me wrong, we all need those spaces and I would champion for those to continue, but this is different because this is a daytime thing. This is a space for people maybe who feel too nervous or overwhelmed to go to a bar, who might struggle with noise, thinking of neurodiverse people, or people who aren’t even old enough to go to a bar. This is a coffee shop, it doesn’t matter what your age is. We’ve had families here.”
It's clear the space is much needed. A report by Nottingham City Council and Nottinghamshire Health & Wellbeing Board in November 2024 recognises inequalities, highlighting that people who identify as LGBTQ+ are more likely to experience mental health problems. It also identified, through consultation with stakeholders, that there was a lack of services for specific populations, including people from LGBTQ+ communities.
A long-time volunteer for the national LGBTQ+ helpline Switchboard, Jake formalised his counselling skills and set up Pride Space after he qualified. “Empathy and being with somebody will only go so far. It is a lived experience that says, ‘Yeah, I totally get where you're coming from’,” he says.
Alongside one-to-one counselling online or in person, Pride Space currently hosts a recovery meeting, a carers group, and a gay and bi men’s therapy group. “It’s something I’m quite passionate about, providing therapy services for our community. I work with other therapists from different communities to create the support groups.”
Alongside the therapy groups there’s community events too, with a weekly queer social, peer-led yoga and ‘Pride Rocks’ rock painting currently on offer – all for free. With so many options of groups to run and such a need in the community, how do they decide what to do next? “It’s very much community led. I have so many ideas and not enough hours in the day. I have to keep on telling myself ‘Leave that for next year!’” Jake laughs. This will be their first Nottingham Pride since opening and they’re planning a placard and sign-writing session the day before the event, with the option to store your masterpiece safely in the shop if you can’t get it home.
Gilbert Baker is quoted as saying in an interview about the flag: “Our job as gay people was to come out, to be visible, to live in the truth, as I say, to get out of the lie. A flag really fit that mission, because that’s a way of proclaiming your visibility or saying, ‘This is who I am!’” This is echoed in another neon sign in the shop that reads: ‘A place I can be myself’.
“That to me, is the ultimate goal,” says Jake. “Whoever comes in here feels that they are comfortable. However they arrive, they can be themselves.”
Visit The Pride Shop & Cafe at 65 Maid Marian Way, NG1 6AJ. Pride Space is a CIC that offers counselling and a range of therapy groups.
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