KUOW73%
Seattle's viral LGBTQ garlic bread picnic is growing bigger — and pricier to host 8%
By Casey Martin0%
6/11/2026, 8:56:13 PM
Topics: Race And Identity
BS Summary: This article contains 23 faulty reasoning types, including Optimism Bias, In-Group Bias, and Representativeness Heuristic, with Appeal to Emotion as the most egregious example at 14% saturation with 118 hits. Analysis detected 862 faulty-reasoning hits from 841 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 24.3% and a BS Rank of 8% (20,244 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 92.50% of the article peer group.
Kairi Froehlich needed a friend.
The 26-year-old bartender moved to the Northwest from Arizona a few years back.
She wanted to meet new people in Seattle, which isn't always easy to do.
During a therapy session, she got the idea to host a get-together, throw an event.
So, Froehlich put posters all over town with a simple invitation: "Gays Eating Garlic Bread in the Park."
"I thought, ‘It would be great if 30 people came,’” Froehlich told KUOW.
“That would be amazing if I got to meet 30 people in my neighborhood who are part of the queer community."
It turns out a lot of other people also felt like Froehlich did.
The event went viral online.
Hundreds of people RSVP’d that year and again the next year.
Other cities hosted their own gay garlic bread get-togethers.
"Even outside the country,” Froehlich said.
“I think Norway last year, they held it."
Now in its third year, she said about 800 people showed up to Saturday's event.
People brought picnic baskets and blankets to Woodland Park, buttery loaves of tinfoil wrapped garlic bread tucked under their arms.
The forecast had called for possible thunderstorms, but attendees were treated with warm sun shining through the trees.
"The grass is grassin' and the garlic is garlicin',” said Eric Kiguru, from Tacoma, who made his bread from scratch.
"Fresh chopped parsley and shredded roman and asiago cheese,” he said as unwrapped the steamy bread, “pretty good stuff."
Kiguru was there with his two friends on a picnic blanket, surrounded by a whole bunch of people doing the same thing.
Some brought board games and played Dungeons & Dragons.
There was one furry and at least two cats on leashes.
"The reason I came out is that I'm queer, I want to be around other queers, right?”
Kiguru said.
“It's just nice to be in community, you know, and just see other people kind of just enjoying themselves and hanging out, right?"
Staci Crouch, from Lynwood, heard about the picnic last year from a friend, but they were too late.
Her friend sent a text that said, "Oh, we missed the gay garlic bread!"
But she didn't miss out on it this year.
Crouch brought a fresh loaf of sourdough, in need of some garlic butter or marinara sauce.
Crouch said she felt safe being surrounded by so many other gay people and all the garlic.
"If you're worried about vampires, this is like the safest event for you to be at,” Crouch said, “garlic and sunshine.”
A few blankets away, Leo Latham strung together friendship bracelets with brightly colored beads.
“Gays and garlic bread?
Oh, totally,” Latham said when he saw the event posted online.
He’s new to Seattle and just moved here from North Carolina.
It's casual, quirky things like this, he said, that make him feel at home in a new city.
"These are people that are going through the same struggles that we are” Latham said, “and they're all here together, enjoying their lives like we are and it's really nice to see that."
People brought garlic bread on baking sheets, rainbow plates, and even inside wicker baskets, complete with stemmed glasses for sparkling strawberry lemonade.
Most groups brought one loaf to share, but Chelsea Betancourt had other plans.
"I brought four loaves, yeah we're gay, we’re extra,” they said.
“We have cheese on some of them.
Which ones?
I don't know, so I'm sorry to anyone who's lactose intolerant."
How to keep the garlic bread warm was a challenge for some, but not for Julie Slick.
Perched on top of a wooden picnic blanket was a large, metal oven.
Flames danced in Slick’s hot pink sunglasses.
"I'm working with an Ooni pizza oven with a propane tank,” Slick said.
“Made a brown butter garlic spread on there and threw it in the oven so it's nice and warm and toasty."
Slick and the others enjoying food in the park said they plan to be back next year for this annual tradition, but only if there is an event.
Organizer Kairi Froehlich said her original idea to make new friends has grown so big, with so many people showing up, that she may not be able to afford to keep hosting this.
Park permit fees, insurance, porta potties, the posters on every lamp post: It all adds up, even for an event as assuming as a picnic.
This year’s costs came in close to $10,000, Froehlich said, with donations from attendees covering about a tenth of that.
To save the picnic, she’s turning Gays Eating Garlic Bread in the Park into a nonprofit organization to hopefully get more donations and sponsorships.
If she can’t get those, Froehlich said, this gathering won’t be back next year, at least under her.
"I really wanna make sure that we're finding community,” Froehlich said, “because being able to share resources, our own grievances with each other, even, it's really important right now."
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