There’s a gay culture surrounding clubs and bars, so he figures it’s important that gay men have local options for their club clothes.Ĭonnelly’s store primarily focuses on gay men. He explains that today’s online platforms, like Etsy and Amazon, offer candles and T-shirts galore-so his current niche is clubbing outfits.Ĭlubs and bars have historically been some of the only safe spaces for LGBTQ+ people, he notes. Since the store’s beginning, he says he has expanded three times. But Connelly has changed his inventory to keep up with the market. In the beginning, Rainbow Road sold more gift shop items, such as T-shirts, candles, and calendars. We became a retail place where you could go that people didn’t think would be around.” “But when we opened the store, it was a whole different element from the gay clubs. You had the Gay 90s, you had the Saloon, so you had a couple of bars,” he says, naming the bars in downtown Minneapolis. But back in the 1990s, merchandise that has become relatively commonplace today was rare, Connelly notes. During the month of June, companies put out many rainbow items, and you can purchase a slew of LGBTQ+ themed things online. Today, you can find a wide market for Pride items. “The one thing about being successful in the retail market is you identify a niche that nobody else has,” Connelly says. He says he’d never seen anything like it before and realized there was a gap in the market for a gay business. He was in Phoenix, Arizona, looking to buy a couple of stores when he stumbled upon another gay business in a mall. After graduating college in 1972, Dayton’s hired him back as a buyer.įor years, he worked at the management level for several other retail stores before coming up with Rainbow Road. He started at Dayton’s, the precursor to Macy’s, as a salesperson in high school.
Growing up outside Rochester, Minnesota, Connelly learned from a young age how to run a retail business. Connelly says he’s sold a range of products throughout his time and has changed his store to keep up with what consumers want. And after that, it was either New York or LA.”Ĭurrently, Rainbow Road sells merchandise geared toward gay men, including T-shirts, clubbing outfits, and dildos.
“Nobody had a store like this in Minnesota,” he says. Back then, Connelly says, his store was one of few like it in the Midwest. Jim Connelly, who is about to turn 72, opened Rainbow Road in 1996 to fill a gap in the market, making this year the store’s 25th anniversary. From the outside, people can look in and see the rainbow feather boas, the colorful underwear, and LGBTQ+ themed tank tops sitting in the back of the store. In Loring Park, a couple blocks away from where the Twin Cities Pride festival is typically held every year, Rainbow Road sits in a strip mall. Rainbow Road in Loring Park has served as a gay haven for a quarter of a century