In downtown Portland, a familiar stretch of nightlife anchored by a long-running gay bar is trying to find its pulse again.
RELATED: These Boys Turn 90s Classics Into a Bare (Butt) All Stage Spectacle
Logan Whalen has watched a three-block corridor shift shape over the years. The owner of Best Coast Barber & Co. moved to the Rose City in the 1990s, back when the stretch of what was then Southwest Stark Street between 10th and 13th avenues wasn’t just active — it was unmistakably queer in its visibility. Gay bars, LGBTQ+ businesses, and the easy rhythm of a neighborhood that knew exactly what it was. That rhythm faded over time.
Even after the street was renamed in 2018 to honor Harvey Milk, one of the first openly elected officials in the United States, the energy that once defined the area didn’t automatically return with the new signage. The history stayed. The nightlife didn’t quite keep pace.
CAMP Moves Into a Landmark Space
Now, there’s a new attempt to change that. A gay bar called CAMP is moving into the former Scandals space on SW Harvey Milk St. in downtown Portland — a location that once housed Scandals, a 46-year-old landmark that closed in 2025 and left a visible gap in the neighborhood’s social fabric.
RELATED: Mid Pride Month Music Round Up
The busy Portland street has long been part of the city’s vibrant LGBTQIA+ community, but it has now been without a bar for nearly a year. That is set to change just in time for Portland Pride. Right after Scandals closed, the covered windows became a reminder of what used to be there — a longtime landmark that left a gap in both the neighborhood and the community. Logan and his team are hoping to bring light back to the area.
Building More Than a Bar
The space is still in transition, but the intention behind it is already clear: this isn’t just about reopening a venue — it’s about restoring a kind of everyday presence that the street used to have.
Logan, who also owns a barber shop just across the street, sees the overlap between the two spaces as intentional rather than incidental. Community doesn’t just happen at events or during Pride weekends. It’s built in places where people keep showing up.
“Let’s Go Camping” and the Meaning Behind CAMP
“So we’re going to be called camp as camp has two meanings… Let’s go camping. all of that good stuff. plus, being camp.”
The name works in multiple directions at once — part nostalgia, part invitation, part humor, part identity shorthand. It doesn’t lock itself into a single definition, which feels fitting for a neighborhood that has always shifted while trying to stay recognizably itself.
The choice of location also carries weight. The bar is opening on a street named for Harvey Milk, whose legacy continues to shape how queer visibility is understood in public space. For Logan and his team, that connection isn’t symbolic — it’s a reminder of what public presence can mean when it’s sustained rather than sporadic.
“Chosen Family” and Community Safety
“We have a family out here. It’s my chosen family… whether it’s the barbershop or the bar, you want to make sure that people feel safe and comfortable and seen. that they have a place that they can go, where they have friends who welcome them.” Logan said.
That idea carries extra weight on a block that has already lived through closure, change, and long gaps in visibility. When Scandals shut its doors in 2025, it didn’t just end a business — it interrupted a pattern of gathering that had existed for decades.
A Neighborhood in Transition
Now the area is in a familiar in-between state: construction, covered windows, no firm opening date yet. The uncertainty is part of the process. They are not exactly sure when they will open because it is still a construction site, but they say updates will be shared on Instagram as things progress.
What’s emerging isn’t a return to a past version of the neighborhood. It’s something closer to continuation — an attempt to re-establish a space where queer life in downtown Portland doesn’t just exist during milestones, but on ordinary nights as well.
And sometimes that’s what rebuilding actually looks like: not spectacle, not nostalgia — just the slow work of turning the lights back on.
Source: KOIN 6