Nobody’s Darling became a national James Beard finalist in less than a year — here’s how the fledgling queer bar took flight

CHICAGO — Nobody’s Darling opened last year as a cocktail bar in a city full of cocktail bars — but also with a mission.

Co-founders Angela Barnes and Renauda Riddle are Black. They’re women. They’re lesbians. They wanted their bar to reflect themselves, their experiences and their social circles.

“We wanted this to be a women-centered, women-forward space and a bar where women feel comfortable — but also where everybody is welcome and everyone feels comfortable, as long as there is that respect that this is our space,” Barnes said shortly after Nobody’s Darling arrived on a quiet, leafy stretch of Balmoral Avenue in May 2021.

That simple, yet bold agenda generated an unusual amount of attention for such a new bar, including profiles by The Washington Post and NBC News. It also caught the attention of the James Beard Foundation, which in February named Nobody’s Darling one of 20 national semifinalists for Outstanding Bar Program in what’s widely considered the Oscars of food. Nobody’s Darling had been open barely eight months.

A month later came an even more unlikely turn: Still short of its first anniversary, Nobody’s Darling became — and the only one from Chicago —