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Home Bars & Nightclubs, Business News, Gay News, Neighborhood News, News, Nightlife, Queer News, Seattle NewsThe Comeback Pulls The Plug

The Comeback Pulls The Plug

May 1, 2023• byMichael Strangeways

It’s been a long, drawn out, painful demise for the LGBTQ+ bar and night club THE COMEBACK, but after weeks of speculation and rumor, the ownership team of the SoDo located venue at 1950 1st Ave South announced Sunday, April 30th that it would shut down at end of business day that evening.

Via FB:

The Comeback was a successor to the popular Capitol Hill based gay bar, RPlace which was forced to shut down during the Covid-19 epidemic when its landlords refused to renew the bar’s lease. Floyd Lovelady, the longtime manager of RPlace then announced plans to open a new version of RPlace but renamed on First Avenue in Seattle’s SoDo District. With other partners, the new bar opened in January of 2022 to great fanfare and high expectations from fans of RPlace.

The bar seemed to have a relatively steady customer base on the weekends but little to no traffic the rest of the week. Some cited the bar’s inaccessability from traditional neighborhoods with large numbers of LGBTQ+ residents; SoDo is mostly an industrial and commercial neighborhood and the home of Seattle’s two major sports stadiums. Nightlife does exist in that area but is largely clustered around the stadiums or consists of more night club/disco oriented destination spots like Supernova, the LGBTQ+ friendly night club and The Monkey Loft, a popular EDM venue that is also gay positive. Both venues are primarily only open on the weekend.

Rumors began circulating late in 2022 that the venue was having some financial woes but the drama ramped up at the start of 2023 when C. Scott Smith, the former co-owner of the Capitol Hill disco, Q, began vague posting about a struggling venue he had been trying to partner with and implying that the unnamed venue was failing due to bad management practices. After The Comeback’s majority owner Floyd Lovelady posted on social media that he was relocating to San Diego, the rumor mill went into overtime and eventually the word was, the venue would soon shut its doors. After Smith admitted that his earlier vague posts had been referring to The Comeback, the countdown began but The Comeback continued to insist it would remain open. (Check out our coverage of that story here: https://seattlegayscene.com/2023/03/so-what-the-hell-is-happening-at-the-comeback/ )

The site of The Comeback, 1950 1st Ave South in Seattle, in happier days prior to it opening. Photo by Strangeways

That drama was all just a month ago but time apparently ran out for The Comeback with Sunday’s announcment verifying it was officially over.

Added: we’ve received a report from someone who stopped by on Sunday night that a small crowd (maximum at one time of 40 or so) came to say goodbye to the bar, which had already begun removing fixtures like tables and chairs from the venue with all transactions being “cash only”.

No further word from ownership has appeared. As to the fate of that space…well, it’s now up for grabs for anyone who thinks they can turn it into a viable night life property.

And, a final toast to The Comeback. It’s always a bit sad when LGBTQ owned businesses don’t succeed.

About the Author: Michael Strangeways

As the Editorial Director/Co-Owner, Michael Strangeways writes, edits and does about a million other jobs for Seattle Gay Scene, Puget Sound's most visited LGBTQ news, arts and entertainment website now celebrating its 14th year as a media outlet. A semi-proud Midwesterner by birth, he's lived in Seattle since 2000. He's also a film producer who would like you to check out the Jinkx Monsoon documentary, "Drag Becomes Him" now available on Amazon.com. In his spare time, he gets slightly obsessive about his love for old movies, challenging theater, "otters", vodka, chocolate, "I,Claudius", Lizzie Borden, real books made out of paper, disaster films, show tunes, Weimar era Germany, flea markets, pop surrealistic art, the sex lives of Hollywood actors both living and dead, kitties, chicken fried steak, haute couture and David Bowie. But, not necessarily in that order.

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One Reply to “The Comeback Pulls The Plug”

  1. Seaguy says:
    May 3, 2023 at 8:24 pm

    SODO is not the best place for a bar. It’s very industrial, out of the way from other gay bars and with a large number of encampments it’s sketchy in some parts of SODO.


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