Portland’s queer scene is making a summer comeback with a new venue & drag plaza

Portland, Oregon‘s bar scene is evolving with the recent shutdown of two venues and the opening of two others.

The queer local bar Back 2 Earth in the city’s northern King neighborhood announced its closure on June 28. In an Instagram post, the bar announced, “We are choosing not to renew our lease as we have struggled to keep this space successful and specifically queer. Our hope is that our successor will recognize what this space has meant to our queer community.”

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Back 2 Earth opened up two weeks before the city’s 2023 Pride celebration, replacing the queer bar that existed in the same space before it, Local Lounge, which was open from 2010 to 2021, but was one of the many beloved local businesses that perished during the shutdowns.

Back 2 Earth closed about nine months after the September 2025 closure of Scandals, a beloved queer neighborhood watering hole located on Harvey Milk Street downtown. Scandals operated for about 46 years but struggled to recover from the aforementioned shutdowns amid rising operating costs.

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But not to worry — Scandals re-opened uptown with its Scandals East location. The bar now shares space with Carioca Bowls, a Brazilian-themed eatery known for its hearty and healthy juices & açaí bowls with super-food toppings. However, the eatery closes at 3 p.m., and the bar starts up at 4 p.m.

The bar features a rotating schedule of events, including art marketplaces and exhibitions, DJs, movie nights, and “Creative Outlet Karaoke” (a sort of open-mic performance night where anyone can share any talents they wish).

But fans of the old Scandals may be happy to know that a new bar recently took over its vacated brick-and-mortar location: Camp. The bar, which opened just in time for the city’s Pride celebrations last mid-July, is already hosting weekly game nights, karaoke, and drag bingo alongside its daily happy hours (hosted from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., even on weekends) — not to mention a menu of filling $8 “Camp Dawgs” that feature hot dogs will unique culinary toppings.

Even better, the bar offers zero-proof non-alcoholic cocktails, a comfortable air-conditioned escape from the city’s increasingly hot summers, and quite possibly the city’s best outdoor people watching spot, where you can chat with friends while eyeballing your fellow patrons and the city’s downtown denizens shuffling by.

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Camp’s opening nearly coincided with another big LGBTQ+ grand opening in the city: The June 25 opening of Darcelle XV Plaza, a shaded downtown gathering space named after the city’s recently deceased drag queen (who was the world’s oldest known drag queen).

In addition to hosting a mass wedding for stoppers-by last month, this summer, the plaza is also Thursday night drag performances from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., lectures about the role of drag in Shakespearean plays, a pet fashion show, movie nights, drag queen story hours, and Summer Sounds (a summer concert series) so that the party in downtown Portland never ends!

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