The Egyptian Club - Portland's only remaining dyke bar, will be closing October 9th
We all heard it was coming, we all know why it’s happening, and yet, the news is still a bit of a shock. The storied Portland dyke bar has officially announced closure (except in case of a miracle) via it’s website citing the large overhead associated with running such a cavernous club, the decline in attendance, and the economic situation overall as it’s main reasons for closing it’s doors after many years in business.
The final closing party that will take place on October 9th of this year, and The E Room will remain open until this day.
It is with a conflicted yet undeniably heavy heart that I post this – any loss of queer business is a loss for all of us, in my opinion, especially a tried-and-true dyke bar, which has it’s place in queer/dyke culture, yet I am also hopeful that this will galvanize action to create another queer owned and operated bar/performance space in the gayborhood.
A more in depth farewell for the E Room will be forthcoming.
You can read the whole “goodbye letter” posted by The E Room here.
Can you say real estate cash in? That place has to be paid off, the real estate in that area is jumping and the owner (guess) is of retirement age. Might as well cash it in to retire. Too bad. Portland needs a lesbian specific bar with how many w4w there are in PDX. I loved the place – as a guy.
Honestly, this could be viewed as a opportunity to bring a new business to the area, and should be viewed as such. There are many women that view the club scene as a meat market, and the E-room was no exception. True there are few w4w bars in PDX and the surrounding area, but the business must take it upon itself to market to the clientele and change it’s face, but not its ethic.
It’s too bad that the community failed to support and make the E-Room the place that they desired it to be. It’s a great set up in there and deserved to keep going. Good-bye E-Room, you were fantastic in your own divey way.
Don’t blame your customers when they go elsewhere (which is what happened here.) Figure out what you’re doing wrong. We don’t have to “make it the place we desired it to be.” That’s the business-owner’s job, see? I
[…] This will be a bittersweet evening for sure as COG presents the E Room’s last ever drag show. Portland’s only lesbian bar is slowing winding down to its eventual death. So we might as well celebrate while we still can with draglicious acrobatics and big personalities […]
[…] what our varied and occasionally uncomfortable feelings about Portland’s only dyke bar the E Room may have been, we were all saddened when they announced their impending closure this October. But the owner(s) appeared to want to move on and did not want to accept help in the form of a […]
[…] October 9 Submitted by Fabulous Rob on August 12, 2010 – 7:15 pm2 Comments Our pals over at QPDX have the full stoy here: […]