Two years ago, Mobile nightclub Herz was featured in a documentary showcasing the last few lesbian bars in the country. Now it has closed.

Rachel Smallman, co-owner with wife Sheila Smallman, shared the news Tuesday in a Facebook post addressed to the Herz family. “Sheila and I would like to thank you all for the years of love, support, and the many memories that we made,” she wrote. “To that end, we have found a buyer for our building and have decided to sell. Herz is officially closed. We wish you all the love and blessings due to each of you! We look forward to seeing you in the future!!”

The news followed what appeared to be an active March, with the bar advertising events such as a night of “comedians in drag doing comedy.”

The Smallmans opened Herz in 2019. In a 2021 AL.com interview, Rachel Smallman said that even with several gay bars operating in the area, the couple felt there was room for a venue catering specifically to women. “Even though we have such a vast community here in Mobile, they’ve never had a meeting place where they felt comfortable, because you can go to the average gay bar, and it’s kind of male-driven,” she said. “With (the LGBTQ+ community) being so vast with different types of people, having this spot here where you can come and just be yourself, whoever yourself is, this has been a real step up for them.”

The closure adds to a trend documented by the 2021 film “The Lesbian Bar Project,” which said only 21 dedicated lesbian bars remained active in the United States, down from an estimated 200 in 1980. Executive producer Lea DeLaria and her sources cited a variety of reasons, from gentrification to the advent of dating apps to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sources in the film also said that a general rise in acceptance of homosexuality might also have worked against the bars. Where tolerance increased, potential patrons may have felt less need for a refuge.

But for some, they remained valuable safe spaces and centers of community.

“We’ve made so many differences in so many people’s lives, and it has been so amazing,” Sheila Smallman said in the documentary.

That was very much in evidence from the responses to the closure. Many commenters expressed gratitude to the Smallmans and said it was a place where they’d been able to find themselves and be themselves.

“Thank you both so much for creating a space where I could be authentically me,” wrote one. “That means so very much to me and to everyone who walked through your doors! Herz was so much more than a bar… it was my safe space, my home, my happy place!