Pasadena’s Only Gay Bar, The Boulevard, Faces Oct. 31 Closing

The Boulevard, the East Pasadena bar that Visit Pasadena describes as the city’s only gay bar, is scheduled to serve its last night on Halloween eve unless owner Steven Terradot can complete a deal to sell it to a new operator.

Terradot said he is stepping away after more than four decades as owner and bartender.

Talks with prospective operators are underway but unsettled, and he put the bar’s chances of closing at even odds: “Right now it’s 50-50.”

“I’m going to be 70 next May, and I’ve been doing this for a long time,” Terradot said. “I have over 40 years in the bar between bartending and owning it, and it’s just time to move on.”

Terradot said several people have approached him about taking over, but he has set a basic test.

“Number one, they need to be able to make it and stay in business,” he said. “There’s a lot of people that have approached, but a lot of them don’t have the means, nor do they have the know-how.”

“So if the bar’s going to continue, I want somebody that’s going to be at the helm that can steer it to a new age,” he said. “As far as people that I’m in negotiation with now, I don’t know that any of it’s going to work out. We’ll see.”

Any handoff also depends on the property. Terradot said he leases the building at 3199 E. Foothill Blvd. and owns the bar’s liquor license. He said the Boulevard could continue “if the landlord is able to work out a lease that’s beneficial to all parties.”

“So far, that hasn’t happened,” he said.

The closing would affect a small staff and a larger group of performers.

“We only have two part-time bartenders right now,” Terradot said. He said the bar also has several drag performers. “They lose their Friday night and their weekends here. It is a hardship on them.”

Until the closing, Terradot said, the bar is running karaoke and drag shows, with a performances every Friday night.

“It’s been very, very busy on the weekends and our weeknights are way over normal as well,” he said.

Halloween falls on a Saturday this year. Terradot said a drag show is planned for both Friday and Saturday nights that weekend.

“Well, the final night will be Halloween, so we should be jam packed,” he said.

Visit Pasadena, the city’s convention and visitors bureau, says the Boulevard was established in 1979 and calls it a local mainstay known for nightly karaoke and weekly drag shows. The bureau lists it among Pasadena’s LGBTQ-owned businesses and featured it in its 2023 “All Are Welcome in Pasadena” Pride campaign.

The bar has outlasted other Pasadena gay bars, including Encounters, Copa and Nardis. It also survived the COVID-19 shutdown, when it was at risk of closing.

In 2021, frequent customer Mark Lanza started a GoFundMe campaign seeking $50,000 to help keep it open.

Terradot said he hopes the bar has been a safe place.

“It’s given a safe place, I hope, for people in our community where they can go and be themselves without fear of being mistreated or even attacked,” he said.

He also said the bar’s audience has shifted.

“The world’s changed a lot. A lot of our young people go to straight bars or go to other places. They don’t have to stay just in a gay bar,” Terradot said. “So we’d like to keep a safe place, but there also has to be a demand for it.”

The Boulevard, at 3199 E. Foothill Blvd., opens at 8 p.m. The bar can be reached at (626) 460-8102.