Badlands, Portland’s newest LGBTQ+ nightclub, opens

Published 10:22 pm Wednesday, June 12, 2024

A new LGBTQ+ nightclub has opened in Portland at the former home of Embers, a gay bar and club that closed in 2017 after nearly 50 years.

The Old Town venue at 110 N.W. Broadway will host DJs, drag shows, viewing parties, karaoke and games like trivia, bingo and pool tournaments.

Embers closed abruptly in 2017 after the club’s owner, Steve Suss, suffered a stroke. Suss died in 2020.

Steven Lien, a former co-owner of Embers and current retail business owner and founder of Travel Gay Portland, said the building has “a wonderful history, and it’s something that is dear to my heart.”

Embers opened in 1969 but moved to the Northwest Broadway location in the 1970s. The space served as a nightclub, but also as home to a food bank and a range of clubs and organizations, Lien said.

On Badlands’ opening night, the neon sign reading “Embers Lounge” in one room of the nightclub brought tears to his eyes, Lien said.

Curtlynn Gonzalez, Portland’s Ms. Gay Pride 2023-24, works the door at Badlands.

“It’s going to be a good time. The city’s really excited about it, so I am very excited to meet them where they’re at,” Gonzalez said.

“As a trans woman, I absolutely love being employed here because I think they’re really genuinely trying to do their best to make sure that the community has a great response,” Gonzalez said, adding that management has shown a commitment to diversity in employment and programming.

Badlands Portland is owned by TJ Bruce, who owns multiple gay venues in California, including Badlands locations in Sacramento and San Francisco.

Bruce leased the building in 2017, with years in the bar business and a decade in construction under his belt.

“I loved this space, but I knew that it needed a whole lot of love, and I wanted to give it that,” Bruce said. He initially hoped to continue on as Embers and reopen quickly, but renovations took longer than expected. Then the pandemic hit.

“We just kept muscling through and we went through the recovery period after COVID and it took a little longer than we thought. But we’re here,” Bruce said on opening night.

Bruce said his hopes for Badlands Portland were that the club “serves the needs that we’re hoping that it will serve, which is keeping the community close together and having a blast bringing our allies in as well … and that we’re here for a very, very, very long time, like the previous bar.”

The friends and family preview early on opening night brought workers from Portland’s other queer spaces, like Scandals, the gay bar on Southwest Harvey Milk Street, and Darcelle XV Showplace, the nightclub and drag venue named for the legendary drag queen.

Drew Picard and Neil Hetrick, both bar leads at Scandals, were among the opening-night visitors.

“The city needs it,” Picard said of having another LGBTQ+ space. “We’re just excited to see the space actually being used .… It was sad to see it sit for so long, so we’re happy to see the doors back open.”

Badlands opened on June 12, the eighth anniversary of the Pulse nightclub massacre, in which a gunman murdered 49 people attending Latin night at the gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

Hundreds of people attended a vigil outside Embers on the evening of June 12, 2016, hours after the Florida shooting took place.

“When I try to explain the importance of bars and clubs to people who aren’t queer, I always just say that’s where we felt safe and that’s where we gathered. So this is our movement. Our movement was often in clubs such as the Embers,” Portland City Commissioner Dan Ryan said at Badlands’ ribbon cutting after a moment of silence in honor of the Pulse victims.

Badlands now is open until 2:30 a.m. every night, opening at 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 2 p.m. Saturday and noon Sunday. More information is at badlandsportland.com and @badlandspdx on Instagram.