Como La Flor: An LGBTQ-Friendly Café in Querétaro Centro—A Place to Work & Belong

The first thing that caught me was the sign: “Mi casa es tu casa. Straight friendly.” Not “gay friendly.” Not a rainbow tucked discreetly into a window. The assumption was reversed, playfully and unmistakably. This was a queer space, and everyone else was welcome too.

I had chosen Como La Flor deliberately. I was looking for somewhere in Centro Histórico de Querétaro where I could spend the day with my laptop, drink good coffee, and work on Aurelda without feeling as though I had to edit some part of myself before I even opened the computer. Within minutes of arriving, I knew I had chosen well. The room felt comfortable rather than performative. The baristas were warm. A rainbow flag moved above the old street outside, framed by stone, color, church towers and centuries of history.

Como La Flor and La Casa de Rubén: More Than a Café in Querétaro

Como La Flor is an independent café-bistro operating inside La Casa de Rubén, an LGBTIQA+ community center in the heart of Querétaro’s historic center. La Casa de Rubén was conceived in 2023 in memory of Rubén Salazar Lazareno, who had been known for making his own home a gathering place filled with respect, laughter and love. The nonprofit was formally established in 2024, and its permanent Centro Histórico space opened in April 2025 after a year of restoration and construction.¹

The philosophy is not hidden behind branding language. La Casa describes itself as a safe, welcoming place where diversity is celebrated and personal expression is not suppressed. Beyond the café, the building includes multipurpose rooms, a small library and psychological support services. Its programming has included reading groups, queer tango, art and creative workshops, wellness activities, film events and conversations about rights and community. Even now, its calendar continues to function less like a nightlife listing and more like an invitation to actually build relationships.²

That matters. A safe space is not simply somewhere with a rainbow sticker on the door. It is a place built so that people can linger, learn, work, meet, speak and exist without first negotiating whether they are welcome.

A Queer Safe Space Inside Traditional Querétaro

The location makes the contrast even more interesting. Querétaro’s historic center is a UNESCO World Heritage site, known for its colonial urban plan and extraordinary concentration of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century civil and religious architecture. The church is not incidental to the visual identity of this city. Bell towers still define much of Centro’s skyline.³

Querétaro has also long carried a reputation as one of Mexico’s more socially conservative states. When the state legislature finally approved marriage equality in 2021, national coverage described Querétaro in exactly those terms. The reform came years after Mexico’s Supreme Court established in 2015 that excluding same-sex couples from marriage had no constitutional justification. By late 2022, marriage equality was available throughout all 32 Mexican states.⁴

The change has not only been legal. In 2013, Pew Research found that 61 percent of Mexicans said homosexuality should be accepted by society; by 2019, that figure was 69 percent. That does not mean prejudice disappeared, and it certainly does not mean every part of Mexico changed at the same pace. But it helps explain something one of the baristas and I found ourselves talking about today: when you look back only ten or fifteen years, the speed of change can feel astonishing.⁵

And yet, standing beneath that “Straight Friendly” sign, I was reminded that progress becomes real through places. Laws matter enormously. So do the café, the community room, the reading group, the person behind the counter who knows exactly why the word safe still matters.

From Café La Fauna in Cuernavaca to Como La Flor in Querétaro

There was another reason this place immediately felt right. In Cuernavaca, I spent much of my working time at Café La Fauna, another independent café in Centro that became one of my anchors. La Fauna is deeply connected to books and reading; local coverage has described it as a literary refuge, and the café has hosted reading groups, book presentations, poetry and other cultural events. It also happens to be just a couple of blocks from Cuernavaca’s Zócalo, with the kind of atmosphere where sitting with a laptop or notebook for hours feels natural.⁶

So today I had to smile at the accidental poetry of it: Fauna to Flor.

Since my golden retriever, Mila passed away last November, travel has carried a different weight for me. Over the last few months, moving through central Mexico, from Cuernavaca to Tequisquiapan and now Querétaro, has not simply been about collecting destinations. I think I have been learning how to recognize home in smaller forms: a familiar table, a conversation, someone remembering my name, a place where my nervous system does not have to brace itself before I begin the day.

Cafés can sound trivial beside grief. They are not. Sometimes belonging returns through very ordinary doors.

Why I Chose This Café to Work on Aurelda

As I write this, there is a latte beside my laptop, green chairs around warm wooden tables, and the quiet background rhythm of people coming and going. I came here specifically to work on Aurelda.

That choice matters to me because Aurelda has always been concerned with fragmentation and remembering, with what happens when we stop performing belonging and begin building it instead. Como La Flor and La Casa de Rubén are doing something wonderfully concrete with a similar human question: what does it take to create a place where people can arrive as themselves?

Aurelda is fiction, myth and living creative work. This café is bricks, coffee, wages, community programming and people showing up for one another. They are not the same thing. But sitting here, the resonance is easy to feel. Coming home is not always a return to somewhere we have already lived. Sometimes it is recognizing a space that says, in one form or another: mi casa es tu casa.

Is Como La Flor Worth Visiting in Querétaro?

Absolutely!

If you are looking for an LGBTQ-friendly café in Querétaro Centro, a welcoming place to work from your laptop, or simply a thoughtful independent café away from the interchangeable chain experience, Como La Flor is one of my strongest recommendations. You’ll find it at José María Morelos Oriente 2A, inside La Casa de Rubén in Centro Histórico. Come for the coffee and food, but pay attention to the larger house you have entered.

And if the ideas in this story resonate with you, you can begin the journey with The Aurelda Chronicles, Book 1: The Prophecy of Resonance. I offer the ebook directly from Aurelda because buying direct keeps the relationship between reader and independent creator closer, while supporting the continued creation of the books and the larger Aurelda ecosystem.

Work Cited

1. La Casa de Rubén’s official history says the project was conceived in 2023 to honor Rubén Salazar Lazareno, formally constituted as an association in March 2024, and created to provide a safe, welcoming community space. Querétaro’s tourism authority dates the opening of the permanent Centro space to April 2, 2025.
2. La Casa’s official programming covers culture and arts, creative industries, education, mental health and wellbeing, and human rights. Recent and current programming includes reading groups, queer tango, animation and film events, art therapy and other community activities.
3. UNESCO describes Querétaro’s Historic Monuments Zone as a living historic center distinguished by its seventeenth- and eighteenth-century civil and religious Baroque architecture, with religious complexes and bell towers forming defining elements of the cityscape.
4. Querétaro approved marriage equality in September 2021 after years of legal and activist pressure; contemporaneous national reporting repeatedly characterized the state as among Mexico’s more conservative. Mexico’s Supreme Court had established in 2015 that there was no constitutional justification for excluding same-sex couples from marriage. Marriage equality became available in all 32 Mexican states in 2022.
5. Pew Research found that 61% of Mexican respondents said homosexuality should be accepted by society in 2013; its 2019 survey placed Mexico at 69%, part of a longer upward trend in acceptance.
6. Café La Fauna’s own materials place it two blocks from Cuernavaca’s Zócalo, while local cultural coverage describes it as a book-centered literary refuge with reading activities. Its current event listings continue to include book presentations and cultural programming.