Switch: The Cuff is taking over Queer/Bar — a year after Queer/Bar sold off The Cuff
With a Pike/Pine business couple ready to step away from the nightlife industry, there are some changes going on in Capitol Hill’s gay bar scene.
Queer/Bar is getting familiar new owners.
Every Pride, there’s pretty much always some kind of drama or big news…over the years, we’ve had Drag Queen Drama, and Seattle Pride Drama, and, Political Drama, and just general soap opera shenanigans. For Pride 2026, it’s a simpler kind of drama…it’s just the news that Queer Bar has been sold to the owners of The Cuff Complex.
Queer/Bar husband and husband owners Joey Burgess and Murf Hall tell the SGS they are ready for “a different chapter of life” and stepping away from nightclub ownership. They continue to hold Elliott Bay Book Company, Oddfellows, and The Gemini Room.
The dramatic turn of events comes a year after Burgess and Hall sold The Cuff to Scott Walent, who talked with CHS about his career in San Francisco as an events promoter and his hopes for restoring and protecting the 13th Ave leather bar.
Now Walent is stepping up to take 11th Ave’s Queer/Bar under his wing.
The 2017-born Queer/Bar grew into the center of Burgess and Hall’s Pike/Pine business family as a hangout and performance venue that worked to hold its own amid the neighborhood’s changing nightclub tastes. This winter brought a somewhat ignominious chapter as the ownership transformed the venue into a pop-up “Christmas Dive Bar” to cash in on the season’s holiday spirit.
But this summer saw Queer/Bar ready to shine again with upcoming Queer/Pride Festival nearly rivaling the Capitol Hill Block Party as it has grown into a three-day festival of music and Pride on 11th Ave.
With the 11th Ave club ready to move under new ownership, the changes join other nightlife ripples in the neighborhood. The changes will include a major closure. CHS reported here on the decision to close 10th and Pike nightclub Havana after 20 years. Havana’s last night of business will be Saturday.
Queer/Bar is located at 1518 11th Ave. Learn more at thequeerbar.com.
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