The Egyptian Club in Portland, Oregon was named in 2009 by GayCities as America’s best lesbian bar. It will be closing Oct. 9, as the “economy has taken it’s toll on our community and on our bar.”
In a note posted on the club’s website, the owners say, “The miracle we are looking for is either to win the lottery, or an immediate upturn in the economy that would allow for record sales in the near future along with enough residual business to sustain us for however long our community would have us here. With the way we see businesses closing all around us, we think it would be a miracle for that to happen. We are not looking for fundraisers, or handouts. Those would only help temporarily. We want to sell our product to people who want it. We are a business. We live by different rules than the non-profit organizations we do fundraisers for.”
Gay nightlife isn’t a charity? This is news.
the crustybastard
Not looking for a handout?
Why that’s…unamerican.
Tina
NOOOOOOOOOOOO đ
Half the reason I wanted to move to Portland is gonna be gone…
L.
“Economy has taken IT’S toll on our community and on our bar.”
The grammatical mistake isn’t even in the original article. Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V are your friends, Queerty.
ricky lee
It’s easier to blame the economy than to blame poor business practices and management. If it truly is the economy then, as business owners, they should have looked for new and innovative ways to sell their product. Booze is easy to peddle to the GLBT crowd since we have an affinity for it. If people stopped coming it’s probably more to do with the establishment and the atmosphere at some level. Dive bars in rural areas find ways to keep their doors open and they don’t use excuses when they fold.
Crash
I would like to point out, that in spite of the boo-hooing statements about the economy, and about how hard it is to “keep (their) doors open”, that the bar has not actually closed. The owners have just changed the name to “Weird Bar” and made it “not a lesbian bar.”
So before you assume, as many will after reading these remarks, that lesbians have no money and have forced this business to close, be aware that somehow they are still remaining open, just in a different incarnation. Without even having won the lottery.
So those of us, hundreds of lesbians who flocked to what we thought was a closing party, were actually just helping to fund our further marginalization.
Maybe that was the miracle Kim was looking for.