Pasadena's only gay bar is set to pour its last round on Halloween night, closing out a 45-year run on Foothill Boulevard unless owner Steven Terradot can find a buyer in time. The Boulevard will mark the occasion with a costumed farewell bash featuring drag and karaoke, the very traditions that helped define the bar for generations of regulars.
The 69-year-old Terradot, who is retiring and has put the bar up for sale, told LAist that the bar hosted weddings, funerals and even college graduations over the decades. He bought The Boulevard in 1999, according to the Los Angeles Times, after starting out as a bartender there in 1985. He recalled that the first Friday night he owned the place, the register took in just $200.
Located at 3199 E. Foothill Blvd., the bar has witnessed Pasadena's LGBTQ+ history, including the AIDS crisis — Terradot has said he lost 11 friends during the epidemic. Accounts differ on exactly when the bar got its start: LAist describes it as opening in 1981, while Pasadena Now traces its history to 1979. Either way, its run has spanned more than four decades of the city's queer nightlife.
Drag Nights, Karaoke and a Home for Trans Pasadenans
Over the years, The Boulevard built its identity around recurring traditions: Friday drag nights, signature karaoke nights that became a draw of their own, and Tuesday trans nights hosted by Honey B. Hive. Those Tuesday gatherings helped turn the bar into a community space for trans people in the San Gabriel Valley.
Regular David Imai, who first visited the bar in 2012, said it has a reputation as the gay Cheers — a place where the welcome never wears off. “You always feel welcome,” Imai said of the bar, per the same LAist report.
A Scramble to Find a Buyer Before Mid-November
In an October 30 report, Pasadena Now said The Boulevard was scheduled to serve its last night on Halloween, Saturday, October 31, unless Terradot could complete a deal to sell it to a new operator. At that point, Terradot described negotiations with prospective buyers as unsettled. “Right now it's 50-50,” he told the outlet.
Terradot has said he'll hold out for a buyer until mid-November, and The Boulevard could reopen if someone purchases it. Word of the potential closure has not scared off customers — business has reportedly increased more than threefold in recent weeks, Terradot said, as regulars and curious newcomers alike turn out before the lights might go dark for good.
Outlasting Pasadena's Other Gay Bars
The Boulevard has outlasted several other Pasadena gay bars that came before it, including Encounters, Copa and Nardis, Pasadena Now noted in its reporting. The bar's history traces back to a liquor license obtained in 1981 by Randy Biggs and Carl, who had purchased The Office, a gay beer-and-wine bar, that same year.
The looming closure fits into a broader regional pattern. Joseph Hawkins, former director of the ONE Archives at the USC Libraries, told LAist that gay and lesbian bars across Southern California are facing rising costs and a decline in alcohol consumption. “Masses of people who can go to a bar and sustain it over a long period of time has become more and more difficult,” Hawkins said, though he suggested the community's gathering spaces may be shifting rather than vanishing outright. “Maybe we're not losing gay bars; what we're doing is opening up other spaces where gay people can be included,” he said.
A study of Damron guide listings found an overall 36.6% decline in gay bar listings nationwide between 2007 and 2019, though researchers cautioned that listing changes don't necessarily equate to physical bar closures, according to a report published in the journal Socius. The Guardian has reported that gay bars were already disappearing before the pandemic amid rising rents, gentrification and the growth of queer dating apps — a trend that accelerated when four iconic Los Angeles gay bars with a combined 130 years of history closed permanently during the pandemic, including Studio City's Oil Can Harry's after half a century of queer line dancing, per The Guardian.
Last Call at the Boo-levard
The farewell event, dubbed Last Call at the Boo-levard!, starts at 7 p.m. on Saturday, October 31, at the bar's Foothill Boulevard address. Costumes are encouraged, and the party is for ages 21 and older.
The Boulevard previously proved its staying power once before, reopening in June 2021 after 15 months of pandemic closure, according to the Los Angeles Times. Whether it survives this latest threshold now rests on whether Terradot can find a buyer before his mid-November deadline passes.
