Boyztown, Denver's Oldest Queer Cabaret Bar, Has Closed

The doors of Boyztown, at 117 Broadway, bear a strip of paper with the word "CLOSED" and nothing more.

Boyztown opened in 2005 and long billed itself as "Denver's hottest male revue." But during the day — and while the dollar bills were floating around the stage at night — Boyztown felt like a neighborhood bar.

There was no official closing announcement, but Boyztown's website domain is no longer registered. The club's last post on X is dated November 28 and does not mention a closing. Neither does Boyztown's last Facebook post, on November 26, though the club's page says "permanently closed."

Boyztown is so old that no one in our office could remember exactly when it opened. According to an old Westword article, the club opened in the ’50s after the building served as a speakeasy in the ’20s, and was a proud-and-out purveyor to the gay community by the ’70s. By the early 2000s, however, Boyztown had a notorious drug problem.

Randy Long purchased Boyztown in 2005 and rehabilitated the club's reputation. Ten years later, Long faced an influx of bachelorette parties, which some patrons said impeded the space, which was designed for gay men. His solution: charging a $5-a-head table reservation fee for bachelorette parties in exchange for "free" shots once the women arrived.

Long was more than a club owner: He also used profits from Boyztown to support two gay softball teams and the Gay Men's Choir.

Though it's unclear why Boyztown closed, it's a clear loss for a stretch of Broadway that is grappling with how to keep businesses afloat this year amid a rise in crime and rent.