In the years since Boxers opened, gay New Yorkers have won the right to marry and to serve openly in the military. The Stonewall Inn, the Greenwich Village flash point of gay rights, was enshrined as a National Historical Landmark; an AIDS memorial was erected on Greenwich Avenue; Jason Collins played with the Brooklyn Nets as the NBA’s first openly gay player; Laverne Cox went from waitressing in Union Square to gracing the cover of Time as a transgender icon; and Ritchie Torres, a city councilman, became the Bronx’s first openly gay representative. The city’s gay pride parade is now so mainstream that last year it was televised nationally.

Yet, amid a gay renaissance of broader, nonconforming sensibilities — queer, transgender and woke — Boxers has bet on old-school, meat-market machismo. It is frequently described as “gay Hooters,” not only for its Chippendales-style seminude employees but also its menu, which feels plucked from a Midwestern airport: Cap’n Crunch French toast, cheese fries, toasted cheese ravioli, chicken tenders, and macaroni & cheese bites.

It seems to be paying off — $2 Taco Tuesdays and all.

With the Washington Heights opening, Boxers expects to pass the $10 million mark in annual sales this year, said its owners, Bob Fluet and Rob Hynds. They have requests for franchises in California, Florida, Ohio, London and Rio de Janeiro, they said, and are scouting a Chicago location. Both men still work their longtime professions: Mr. Fluet is a general contractor in New Jersey and owns an auto body shop; Mr. Hynds is a real estate agent in Connecticut. They’re both married (not to each other) and admit to being quite suburban. “I mean,” Mr. Fluet said, “I wear Hanes.”

According to Daniel Nardicio, the well-traveled gay night-life impresario who holds parties all over the city, including at Boxers, the bar is not cutting edge but necessary. “They’re not bland, but they’re basic,” Mr. Nardicio said, referring to both the bars and its owners. “They’re kind of gay Hooters, but really they’re gay TGI Fridays. And let me say, before the pitchforks come for me, we need that. We need a comfortable space. We are entitled to everything straight people have, including our own vanilla. I’m from Cleveland. I like TGI Fridays.”