Forgotten Gay El Paso: the Bars

El Paso has a rich gay history that isn't widely known or readily available. Here's a bit of what I know.

Publication Note: I will continually update this article as I remember more about these bars or I hear more from others. If you know of other bars not listed here, tell me about them in the comments or in Chat!

El Paso has changed a lot since I first came here in the late 1980s. Back then, the downtown had more in common with large American cities of the 1950s and ‘60s than those of the 1980s. While other cities were losing their downtowns to so-called “white flight” and underinvestment, El Paso continued to have a vibrant downtown throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s. It was full of life and commerce, much of which we have the people of Juarez to thank for pumping life and money directly into our civic veins with their massive cross border traffic.

Above, me in 1988, sitting on the back of my early ‘80s Honda Goldwing 500, shortly after I washed up in El Paso

And there were gay bars; perhaps more than one would expect a city of this size to support. At that time and probably still, Juarez was twice as big as El Paso and much younger. A large number of bar patrons came from there. They came over legally and illegally. They came to patronize and to socialize. Above all, they came in large numbers.

In this article, we’ll explore a non-exhaustive group of bars that are now extinct. They occupied a huge place in the early scene. Like in other cities, they disappeared for many reasons. However, the biggest reason our downtown declined when it did and the gay bars in particular became fewer with many disappearing all together likely has to do with Operation Hold the Line.

Operation Hold the Line was a policy put in place in late 1993 by the-then sector chief of the Border Patrol (and later congressman), Sylvester Reyes. In effect, he established a system that prevented people from casually crossing without papers. In place of the cat-and-mouse system of border policing that prevailed for decades, the new approach was all about prevention. The BP flooded the zone with officers and placed them every quarter mile or so along the border to catch and deter at the point of entry.¹

Up until then, thousands crossed daily to shop, eat, drink, work in the informal domestic and farming sectors, and basically enjoy the things not available in Juarez due to restrictive trade policies and other reasons. Some waded across the Rio Grande under the bridges that connected downtown with Juarez. Some crossed upstream or downstream before there were fences or barriers of any kind. Some crossed por American wherein younger Mexicans simply declared themselves American citizens and were waived through by bored and seemingly disinterested INS officers. Perhaps this permissive attitude to enforcement was because then as now the peoples of El Paso and Juarez were far more alike than different even down to the dominant language they spoke.²

And so with that introduction, here are some of the bars, in no particular order, that are gone but deserve to be remembered.

The Apartment Bar, 815 Myrtle Avenue

A German and his Mexican boyfriend owned and operated this bar as late as the early 1990s. I’ve heard that the German had come to El Paso decades before, possibly with the German military that trained at Ft. Bliss, and stayed after he met his boyfriend.

Unfortunately, I never went into this bar and I’m sorry I didn’t.

The bar looked rather different when it was open with a beige exterior and no windows (as I recall).

The Diamond Lil Bar, 308 S. Florence Street, 606 Magoffin Avenue, other locations over the years

The Diamond Lil started in the Toltec Building (photo on the right) in 1968 or ‘69. Don Ward opened it after working as a bartender at another bar. The bar moved several times, having been located at Five Points, out on Dyer almost to the end of the street at that time, and eventually on South Florence (the photo on the left).

Don once told me that he was open a short time in the original location when another bar owner, Louie Medrano who owned the Pigalle Bar directly across the street, paid someone a $100 to go into his bar and start a fire in the restroom. The place burned and was closed for the next two years before it reopened with the help of a UTEP college professor named Howard Applegate, who loaned or gave Don the money to reopen.

I’ll have much more on the Diamond Lil in future articles in the coming months.

Cliff’s Lounge, 701 E. Paisano

Cliff was from Santa Fe. His family ran liquor stores. Somehow, he ended up in El Paso where he patronized the Diamond Lil. As the story goes, he once went to the Diamond Lil when Don was hosting a drag show. Don asked Cliff for the $2 cover but he refused to pay. So, he was refused entry. Some months later, Cliff’s Lounge opened next door. As Don tells it, Cliff’s Lounge was a spite bar that contributed to the demise of the Diamond Lil.

Above, me being silly in the parking lot of Cliff’s Lounge around 1990

I knew Cliff in passing. He was a short guy, about 5 foot tall and a former merchant marine. He once showed me a picture of himself on a ship. He could hold a grudge and disliked me for some reason. He eventually passed away from AIDS and the bar closed. Bob Bonaventure who owned The Old Plantation bought the building from Cliff’s estate and moved another bar into the location. The other bar was called The Whatever Lounge.

Edit 5/17/2023: Cliff’s full name was Clifford Gallegos.

The Whatever Lounge, 919 E. Paisano

The Whatever Lounge also opened shortly before the Diamond Lil closed in 1988. Floyd Callaway owned the bar and opened with the help and investment of Bob Bonaventure or so I’ve been told.

Floyd was from Cisco, Texas. He came to El Paso probably in the 1960s and drove a beer truck for years before he retired and then opened his bar. He ran this bar until his death sometime in the early 1990s. As mentioned, Bob Bonaventure took over the operation and moved it into the old Cliff’s Lounge location where he ran it off and on until his death some years later.

The Google Street View screenshot above is the only image of the building at the original location I could find. The exterior color and appearance is basically the same as it was. That location is now a vacant lot.

The bar in the Google Street View screenshot is one I went to once. I can't recall the name of it and can’t make out the name in the screenshot. If you remember it, I’d love to hear more about it in the comments below. What I do recall is it was primarily a transgender bar or transexual bar as we called them and as they self-identified back then.

Above, The Whatever Lounge in the old Cliff’s Lounge location after it closed sometime around or after 2010

I worked for Floyd at The Whatever Lounge for about three months before he fired me because I was not good at it and frankly didn’t enjoy putting up with the bullshit. There’s more to the story that I’ll tell in a future article.

The Whatever Lounge started out as a sort of late period hustler bar at a time when hustler bars were sort of falling out of favor. Eventually, it became something that used to be called a “Latin” bar but was really just another El Paso nightclub playing a lot of Juan Gabriel, Rocio Durcal, exitos internacionales, etc. and catering to mostly Latina lesbians, many of whom were from Juarez.

Edit 5/17/2023: There was a third iteration of The Whatever Lounge that was opened possibly around 2016 by someone completely unrelated to Floyd Callaway or Bob Bonaventure. It lasted possibly a year or two before it went out of business.

Between Bonaventure’s Whatever Lounge and the unrelated Whatever Lounge, there was another bar in this location, called Badlands, opened supposedly by someone from out of town in about 2015. It lasted less than a year.

The Old Plantation and The New Old Plantation, 219 S. Ochoa, 301 S. Ochoa

The Old Plantation started life as a chain with locations throughout the Southwest. The El Paso location eventually was acquired by Bob Bonaventure. It existed in the building on the right above until eventually it moved to the building on the left and became the The New Old Plantation.

The OP as it was known was the gay nightclub for decades. I didn’t really care for it. Therefore, I didn’t go much and have only vague recollections of the place. What I do recall is the old location on the right was much cooler. It was a threadbare, well-worn, disco palace of a place. It had a balcony that went around the edge of the dance floor that felt very much like it might collapse. It sloped down from the wall with a metal railing that barely reached waist level. One push or one too many and you could end up on the dance floor, flat on your back, waiting for an ambulance. However, I don’t know if that ever happened.

The new location was simply too big. It was so big that it never felt busy. Bonaventure who eventually wanted to retire sold it on a self-financing basis to three longtime bartenders. He would eventually have to step in and help from time to time allegedly because of mismanagement. I was told he also had to do the same for his two other bars, the San Antonio Mining Co. and The Whatever Lounge, that were also owned and being run by the bartenders.³

Unfortunately, The New OP became a much more mixed space in the 2000s and 2010s. Complaints were frequent that it had become too straight. It eventually closed after Bonaventure died. There was an attempt to revive it around 2015 or 2016. It did reopen for a period one summer probably in 2018 or 2019, but didn’t last.

Overland Station, U Got It, 216 S. Ochoa Street

These bars were relatively late-comers to the bar scene during my time and didn’t last long. That’s too bad because the building was really nice with a big, cavernous interior that was great for DJs.

Edit 5/19/2023: This building also housed the Metropolitan Community Church for a while. Per Google Street View, it was up until 2011, but not sure when they first occupied the space.

Edit 5/28/2023: The Pet Shop prior to The San Antonio Mining Company, 800 E. San Antonio Avenue

Another bar that started life as a chain and was acquired by Bob Bonaventure, the Mine as it was known always felt like it was aimed at a more upscale crowd, whatever that means. It had a patio and dance floor. I didn’t go here much, especially after I was short changed one evening and was escorted out when I asked for my correct change. I’m still bitter about that. ;-)

Edit 5/28/2023: Manny Rivera tells me this location was where The Pet Shop was located rather than at 217 1/2 E. San Antonio Ave as I wrote below.

The Briar Patch, 204 E. Rio Grande (now the Monarch, which is not gay as far as I know)

My first gay bar. The day I turned 21, I walked down from my basement apartment at 1000 E. San Antonio and joined my people. It was owned at that time by a man named John Carr, who was not the same John Karr who owned a bunch of rentals around town, mostly in Sunset Heights. It was a wonderful place that eventually was sold on and became The Briar Patch on Hyde downtown. One of the bartenders that I particularly remember was a drag queen named Moela. I still wonder whatever happened to her all these years later.

The Pet Shop, Edit 5/28/2023: Time Machine, Edit 6/4/2024: The Pet Shop (and maybe later, Time Machine?), 207 1/2 E. San Antonio Ave

As I understand it, The Pet Shop was the predecessor bar of the San Antonio Mining Co., before it moved from this location to where the latter was. I’m not too sure how that intersects with the fact that the the Mine was also part of a chain of bars at one point.

The Pet Shop was in the basement, below another bar called Chico’s Bar. Rosa Quintana, a beloved member of the gay community back then, was the “bouncer” with a “blackjack” and a can of mace to keep the peace and the gay bashers in line.

Edit 5/28/2023: I’ve been corrected that this is not where The Pet Shop was located. Manny Rivera who DJ’d there said The Pet Shop was actually where the San Antonio Mining Company was located at 800 E. San Antonio Ave. The Pet Shop closed down entirely before the Mine was opened in its place some time later.

If I can get more info regarding the Time Machine, I will add it here.

Edit 6/4/2024: In a comment below, it was confirmed that The Pet Shop was in fact at 207 E. San Antonio, which I confirmed by digging out an old gay ‘zine from 2001 where Izzy Mora quotes Gilbert Salazar, "What eventually became the OP, started out as a little bar called The Pet Shop. It was located downtown underneath Chico's Bar. The bar began to get so packed that they relocated to the building that is now The San Antonio Mining Company, another longtime gay establishment. People used to pay a dollar to get in on Fridays and Saturdays. The Pet Shop had no DJ at the time. Local radio personality, Steve Crosno, would bring in his discotheque to provide dance music."

I had forgotten I had that old ‘zine. Thanks to Yolanda, the commenter, for confirming the original location of The Pet Shop.

Pigalle Club, 441 S. Franklin

Owned by a pugnacious Louie Medrano who allegedly paid someone to burn down the Diamond Lil, this bar was originally, as far as I know, located across the street from the Toltec Building downtown on Magoffin. It eventually moved to the South Franklin location, seen above in a Google Street View screenshot. Both locations were eventually demolished and turned into government buildings.

I met Louie a time or two and all I can say is he was not a pleasant man. Long after he closed his bar, he would come into other bars to check out the competition. I recall him coming into The Whatever Lounge one evening. Perhaps he was plotting a return that never happened.

If anyone remembers him, leave a comment. I’d love to know more about him and his bar.

Edit 5/29/2023: I’m now recalling that Don Ward of the Diamond Lil told me that Bob Damron of the Damron Address Book series of pre-internet gay guides once went into the Pigalle, very probably after 1980, and asked Louie if there were any new gay bars in town. Don says Louie told him no. During the course of Damron’s visit, he eventually learned of the Diamond Lil. In subsequent years, he left the Pigalle out of his guides.

1. A cursory Google search returns a wealth of information on this transformational change in border policing.

2. This was common enough that I had a few juarense friends who crossed por American regularly. Years later, I was with some fellow public defenders in Tijuana, one of whom was a Canadian permanent resident. She pulled this trick and it didn’t work. She was detained for hours and eventually paid a fine and was allowed to keep her green card.

3. This info came directly from the bookkeeper, Ted McQueen, who was a long time friend of mine and has since passed away.