Oh, that pesky Castro rut. If you’re a gay in San Francisco and someone says, “where are we going tonight?” …it’s easy to forget that there are bars outside of the 18th and Market area, or if you’re feeling daring, the Tenderloin. Remember Guerrilla Queer Bar, though? Somebody ought to bring that back.
Oh wait! They totally did! The management of GQB has been hitting the town here and there for the past few weeks; and they struck again last Friday night at the suggestively-named Portals Tavern. It’s located in sleepy West Portal, which despite being only a brief train ride from the Castro is a quiet, low-density, early-to-bed pocket of suburb on the edge of San Francisco. A Brookline to our Boston, if you will.
So Friday night, a gaggle of men — we’d guess about 30 to 40 — in well-fitting sweaters and tasteful shoes tweeted into the neighborhood. The bar turned out to be a good fit for the occasion: the TVs were already tuned to bare-chested, groping wrestlers; the cozy quarters made for comfortable shoulder-rubbing; and a hula-hoop hanging on the wall was soon put to good use. (For hula-hooping, we mean! Not something dirty. GOD.)
According to one attendee who’d been guerrilla-queering since the good old days, this is actually the second time that teh gars have made a destination of Portals Tavern. (Sadly, we couldn’t find a mention of it in their archives.) All in all, a job well-done; a welcome reminder that we’re all free to leave our ghettos whenever we want.
