Storied Houston gay bar seems to have hosted its last party

Just a few weeks after hosting a massive party for LGBTQ+ Pride Month, a staple of Houston's gay nightlife appears to have gone home for good. 

Eagle Houston, a bar and nightclub in the heart of Montrose, seems to have shuttered sometime in the past few weeks. The news was shared first on Facebook by the local gay group Houston Bears, and on Reddit. 

The owner of Eagle, Mark De Lange, did not respond to several requests for comment, and multiple requests for comment to the bar's social media pages went unanswered. When Chron.com called Eagle's publicly listed phone number, the phone appeared disconnected. An employee for the bar directed a request for comment to De Lange. 

When Chron visited Eagle's location at 611 Hyde Park Blvd. in Montrose on Friday, multiple "NO TRESSPASSING" signs had been posted, and the doors had been barred with a wooden board. A notice to vacate property, signed by an attorney representing Eagle's landlord, appears to have been posted on the door in the past several days. The attorney did not respond to a request for comment, but the letter said that the bar's landlord had terminated Eagle's lease. 

The notice spelled out several violations that had resulted in the notice to vacate, alleging that the bar had no valid Sales / Tax Permit, Houston Health Permit, or Occupancy Permit. 

At one point, De Lange also owned the Houston location of gay bar franchise Hamburger Mary's, which relocated downtown in 2022 from its longtime spot on Grant Street in Montrose, only to close in 2023 with no concrete plans of reopening. 

Eagle Houston hosted a massive block party in Montrose on the weekend of Houston's Pride parade, which was well attended. But it appears that it didn't make a difference. 

The bar first began as a weekly party at a Downtown nightclub until it was able to open at 611 Hyde Park, which was previously home to the 611, another Montrose club that first opened in 1984. Eagle Houston opened at the Hyde Park spot in 2014 using the Eagle name, which multiple gay bars around the globe use as a tribute to the Eagle's Nest, a leather bar in New York City. In 2016, as owner De Lange began renovating the second floor, an electrical fire broke out and caused the bar to close for multiple months. 

The bar would reopen with the second floor turned into an intimate nightclub space called the Phoenix Room, paying tribute to Houston's queer history. One wall featured a timeline of Houston's LGBTQ+ history, with notable events including Anita Bryant's 1977 visit to the city, the election of Mayor Annise Parker, and the 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized gay marriage. Another wall featured a recreation of the iconic mural outside of the long-shuttered Montrose bar Mary's, done by the late artist Scott Swoveland. The bar also closed for two months during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Eagle is the latest bar in Houston's gayborhood to shutter. Last summer, Montrose gay bars Buddy and Kiki closed just a few weeks into Pride Month. Play has since replaced Kiki, opening shortly after Kiki's closure.

Are you a former employee of Eagle Houston, or do you have more information about its closure? Please email gwen.howerton@hearst.com.