The queue spanned the block when Portland’s first self-identified lesbian bar in over a decade opened its doors July 1. Named for a radical 20th-century feminist and physician who called the city home, Doc Marie’s promised to be “for everyone.”
It closed the next day.
Two managers quit immediately after the grand opening. Then other employees anonymously formed a workers’ collective and demanded the bar’s owners turn the business over to them, writing on Instagram that they felt “misled about the space being safe and welcoming.”
A post about their demands by Libs of TikTok, a conservative website with more than 1.5 million followers across its social media accounts, further inflamed the conflict.
Now, co-owner Olga Bichko said her Southeast Grand Avenue watering hole will be ready to welcome the return of revelers Saturday, nearly a month-and-a-half after the fuse of unfortunate events ignited.
“Things got to a really ugly place, really quickly,” said Bichko. “We’re just looking forward to having a great team, having a great space and being able to be here for the community.”
Not since the Egyptian Club closed in 2010 has Portland had a dedicated venue that caters to lesbians, a fact that reflects a larger national trend as LGBTQ communities have embraced spaces to include queer and transgender people as well as those with other identities.
Bichko, an educator who moved from New York several years ago and has no previous bar or business experience, said she dreamed up Doc Marie’s during the pandemic.
It’s named after Marie Equi, a left-wing physician who in the early 1900s treated poor patients, championed the rights of women and workers, performed illegal abortions and lived openly as a lesbian.
“We’re proud to align ourselves with those values and really, in a way, carry on that fight, which, unfortunately, we are still fighting,” Bichko told The Oregonian/OregonLive in late June, before the bar’s opening. “We just wanted to do what we could to have a place that people could make memories and people could come together in and be authentic, be proud, be safe, be visible.”
Plenty of Portlanders seemed receptive. Hundreds packed the split-level bar opening night and into the wee hours of the next morning.
“The energy, the positive queer love, queer joy that we envisioned happening was here in a way that was more than we could have expected,” Bichko said.
However, the owner conceded a few “hiccups” prevented a flawless first night. A leak in the building needed to be fixed, said Bichko. The large turnout was far more than staff had anticipated.
A pair of managers hired to run the bar and kitchen quit the next day. Their abrupt departure forced Doc Marie’s to close its doors, Bichko said.
Brandy Feit, the bar manager, said her decision to leave was the culmination of workplace problems and mishaps that the inexperienced owners appeared unable or unwilling to meaningfully address.
The leak, for example, doused some patrons and their meals with dirty water, Feit said, adding that Bichko knew about the problem before the opening. Payroll snafus left employees underpaid or not compensated at all, she said.
Feit said she was also disturbed by how Bichko attempted to defuse a physical altercation during opening night in which one patron struck another person and later made a series of racist remarks.
“The level of concern was nonexistent, to be really honest,” Feit said.
Erin Cox, the kitchen manager, provided a nearly identical account in a separate interview.
For her part, Bichko disputed the characterizations of the leak, the payroll system and the fight. She said the managers should have hired security, as she said she requested.
“They were in over their heads,” Bichko said. “They mismanaged my bar, and then they went to a bunch of disgruntled employees and got everyone riled up.”
Two days later, an anonymous group claiming to be employees of the bar and calling itself the Marie Equi Workers Collective launched an Instagram account with the same name.
In a series of then-public posts, the group outlined the grievances.
The group also accused Bichko of “unprofessional and unsafe behavior” and claimed she had “enabled an openly racist aggressor” while intoxicated when the fight erupted. Bichko denies it.
“Our vision is a queer worker owned cooperative,” they wrote, one that is run “democratically, provides mutual aid, and hosts free opportunities for education to our community.”
The collective demanded Bichko step down from the business and turn her ownership over to the recently departed managers.
The Instagram account is now private, and the group did not respond to an email Tuesday. “Our experience with Doc Marie’s will not diminish our dedication to creating the safe, queer space of our dreams,” screenshots of the account from July read.
Bichko said she had no idea who was behind the effort. “They’re anonymous,” she said. “They never presented us with anything except a crazy list of demands saying we should give them the bar. We didn’t want to legitimize it by interacting with it. It’s nonsense.”
But the campaign was enough to prompt a chorus of criticism online. In a now deleted post from July 6, the bar’s Instagram account struck a conciliatory tone.
“We hear you and we are taking steps to ensure that we can carry out our mission of being a proud, safe and inclusive space for our community,” the post said.
As the bar sought to regroup and bring on new staff, the lingering fallout landed on the radar of Libs of TikTok, which reposts TikTok videos and other social media content, often to stir outrage.
“They weren’t woke enough,” the site wrote July 19. Dozens of other websites and social media accounts, primarily catering to conservative or right-wing audiences, further amplified the story.
“It was scary and confusing; it was the dark side of the internet,” Bichko said, recalling a steady stream of threats and online harassment that followed.
“We survived it. We’re still here,” she continued. “We’re reopening, and just want to move in a positive direction.”
— Shane Dixon Kavanaugh; 503-294-7632; skavanaugh@oregonian.com
MJ Johnson contributed reporting
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