stag-lgbtq-nightlife-bars-best_bpxlyn Portland's Best LGBTQ+ Bars, Clubs, and Parties — In Old Town, Stag hosts nightly strip shows and drag brunches on weekends.

Portland’s gay bars are more than just hangouts. Most of the city’s dozen-plus queer bars opened in eras hostile to the queer community. The city’s oldest surviving bars were havens in an openly homophobic era, while its newest venues join a chorus of voices against an increasingly transphobic national climate. The entire LGBTQ+ community should, in the best bars, feel safe and free to let loose, have fun, and maybe nibble on something tasty, on menu or off.

Not all queer gatherings have a permanent home, so we’ve assembled a rundown of the city’s robust scene of recurring pop-up parties alongside our favorite brick-and-mortar establishments. From leather bars to drag dens to lesbian parties to trans cabaret revues to Portland’s “gay Cheers,” there’s always somewhere where everyone’s glad you came.

Jump to: Upbeat Clubs / Low-Key Venues / Strip Clubs / Recurring Queer Parties

Upbeat Clubs

CC Slaughters

Est. 1981 | old town

Though technically on the outskirts of Old Town’s Entertainment District, CC’s is very much at the center of the queer downtown Portland scene. Part cocktail bar and part dance club, it’s an approachable introduction to LGBTQ+ nightlife, which is why it’s most Portlanders’ first gay bar. The drinks are cheap, the greatest gay pop hits and deep cuts are on repeat. Tragically, the beloved institution announced it will be closing its doors on August 3, 2025. Here’s hoping a fairy godmother will swoop in and save it at the last moment.

Featured Events: Towel Tuesdays, Underwear Wednesdays, Trans-uhh-Licious thursdays

Badlands

est. 2014 | old town

In the former home of LGBTQ+ institution Embers, Badlands is helping to rebuild Old Town’s once thriving queer scene. The all-inclusive club streams music videos on its dozens of screens and features drag bingo, Latin nights, karaoke, and late-night dance parties most days of the week. The clientele is as diverse as Portland gets, all ages and bodies mingling under the spinning disco ball or squeezed into booths.

Featured Events: fresh paint amateur drag, women crush wednesdays, thursday trivia

Low-Key Venues

Darcelles_koywkx Portland's Best LGBTQ+ Bars, Clubs, and Parties — Holding several Guinness World Records, Darcelle XV Showplace is the city’s most iconic drag venue.

Darcelle XV Showplace

Est. 1967 | old town

In its late namesake’s absence, Darcelle’s family runs the historic Old Town club Darcelle XV Showplace, and resident castmate-turned-city-treasure Poison Waters reigns as the club’s emcee and grande dame. Long before Darcelle set the Guinness World Record as the world’s oldest drag queen, long before former Portland Monthly editors Fiona McCann and Eden Dawn joined the team that shattered Guinness’s longest continuous drag show world record, audiences relied on Darcelle’s for stiff drinks and drag revues that defied Portland’s homophobic legal code more than 50 years ago. They still do today, entertained by a house cast of some of Portland’s best drag artists.

Featured Events: weekly Friday & Saturday revues, Sunday Funday Brunch, and Catch a Rising Star

Scandals

Est. 1979 | downtown

Scandals, “Portland’s gay Cheers,” is the last queer vestige of the city’s long-gone Vaseline Alley and sits next door to the ghost of forever-famous queer diner the Roxy, which devastatingly shuttered in 2022. It hosts karaoke, drag shows, dance parties, art shows, jazz concerts, the odd TV viewing party—you name it. A mix of college students, tourists, barflies, and workers of all collar colors keep the place busy, as if the good old days have carried on uninterrupted.

Featured Events: sunday afternoon jazz, Sister Bingo

Eagle Portland

Est. 2007 | piedmont

Eagle Portland isn’t related to the other gay leather bars called Eagle found across the country, but it might as well be. If a Portland movie night could give Carla Rossi a run for her box office, it would be the Eagle’s round-the-clock double feature of hardcore gay porn and TV movies routinely screened behind the bar. If you don’t meet the city’s coolest leather daddies, gaymers, leather-clad lesbians, or at least one person in a pup hood, go back and try again. Hungry? Hit up the Slutty Patio Cookout each Sunday, with its free burgers and wieners or pop over to next-door’s Peruvian restaurant, Casa Zoraya.

Featured Events: Slutty Patio Cookout, big city disco, Gayme on

Escape Bar & Grill

Est. 2012 | Sumner

This queer oasis in the Parkrose-Sumner neighborhood—blocks from a popular bingo hall and the scenic Catholic shrine the Grotto—is the PDX airport’s closest destination for a long, gay layover. The welcoming, unpretentious vibe extends to all members of the LGBTQ+ community. Even resident straights are welcome for an infusion of brunch, drag, and board games. Look out for art classes and open mics for budding comedians and baby queens.

Featured Events: karaoke, sapphic singles

Doc Marie’s

Est. 2022 | buckman

Doc Marie’s opened in 2022 as Portland’s first devoted lesbian bar in over a decade. Though it plays nicely off the name of Portland’s favorite boots, the bar is named for Dr. Marie Equi, a turn-of-the-century Portland activist and advocate for labor rights and birth control. In the years since, it’s grown a community that regularly shows up for karaoke, game nights, salsa and bachata dance nights, and dance parties spun by some of Portland’s best DJs.

Featured Events: Queeraoke, queer country nights

Back 2 Earth

Est. 2023 | king

Surreal queer paintings, starry sky projections, and a conservatory’s worth of plants make you feel like you’re in an alien jungle at this newish queer bar. The space-themed drinks, like an extraterrestrial espresso Meteorite Martini, will have you feeling like First Man. The place is something of a passion project for Eagle owner Dan Henderson, returning a queer bar presence to the King neighborhood building that had housed Local Lounge for the past decade. The bar hosts a calendar of drag shows, game nights, and dance parties to unite the LGBTQ+ community’s full spectrum, like the Nu-Glitter queer comedy open mic and monthly tarot evenings.

Featured Events: queer meets, juicy clubhouse

Strip Clubs

Silverado

Est. 1981 | old town

Portland’s longest-running male strip club started life amid a string of ’60s gay clubs, one of them in the building that now houses McMenamins’ Crystal Hotel. This one directly traces its lineage to the ’80s club Flossie’s, which had multiple addresses but moved to Old Town in 2018 and set up shop as a street-level bar with a basement strip club. Today, the upstairs lounge hosts biweekly karaoke and plays music softly enough to comfortably hold a conversation, but it’s tough to drown out the bass from down below. The basement club’s ceiling is low, and the rack seating—the stage’s front row—is intimate.

Featured Events: Monday Amateur Night, Thunderdome Thursdays

Stag

Est. 2015 | pearl district

Stag’s interior—dark leather and bordello velvet, antler trophies and graffitied antique paintings—feels like a gay après-ski chalet strip club. After a change in management a few years back, the newest in Portland’s modest collection of mostly male queer strip clubs feels infused with fresh energy. Stag’s Sunday drag brunch serves generous pours and portions, while annual Pride parties in the adjoining parking lot usually feature a headlining RuPaul’s Drag Race alumnus.

Featured Events: Tuesday Amateur Night, (in)famous drag brunch Sundays

Recurring Queer Parties

Portland’s queer nightlife scene is brimming with talent that plants a Pride flag on the stages and dance floors of other communities. This list is by no means exhaustive, as parties are always starting up in Portland, but it’s a great start for your queer nightlife adventures.

Blow Pony

white owl social club

Blow Pony—Portland’s longest-running freaky monthly queer dance party—has been too big to contain since its grimy warehouse days. Its current home, White Owl Social Club, has a wide-open patio perfect for mingling and smoking. Inside are drag stars, touring musicians, and sweaty bodies to dance against.

Drag Dangerzone

various locations

Each month, DJ Aurora and drag queens Valerie DeVille and Marla Darling’s long-running comedy variety show takes audiences right to the danger zone with local drag, burlesque, and live music.

Jacques Strappe

various locations

Christopher Sky founded this “trashy-chic” queer dance party weeks before the pandemic hit Oregon, but the party goes on. At venues like Statera Cellars’s event space and the subterranean cocktail lounge Voysey, drag queens and DJs keep the party moving while revelers drink magnums of champagne and slurp caviar.

Kit-N-Kaboodle

Kit Kat Club

At the personal behest of Old Town club king Frank Faillace, queer nightlife staple Nikki Lev founded this weekly all-genders, all-bodies night to break the gender binary at strip clubs. Dancers of all experiences and expressions shake whatever they got.

Judy on Duty

various locations

Queer women and nonbinary DJs spin each month in a sapphic heaven of impeccable musical and artistic taste. When they have the space and budget, Judy on Duty also pulls off some impressive art installations, like the shiny black cars parked on the dance floor during the annual Time-Based Art Festival.

Twirl

various locations

This monthly North Portland daytime disco usually roosts at the World Famous Kenton Club but also pops up at the Get Down. Twirl feels like a West Coast take on the classic East Coast tea dance, with DJs, local drag, and a rotating costume theme to keep guests looking and acting their best.

Source link

Share this content: