If you’ve been to a Portland-area bar in the last few years that felt a little retro, a little clubby, and very focused on cocktails, there’s a good chance Quinn Matthewstearn is involved. The impresario bartender has spearheaded a wave of projects on both
sides of the river that attempt to hybridize the neighborhood watering hole with the high-energy nightlife destination, and so far the track record has been good. Starting with Jackies and Two Wrongs, Sugar Hill, Side Eye, Panther Club, QD’s, and, most recently, Nevermind, all have a place under Matthewstearn and business partner David Hall’s amorphous bar development umbrella. His latest, Eldorado, has “flagship location” written all over it: the corner of Morrison and Grand, formerly occupied by Lollipop Shoppe and before that Dig-a-Pony.
Matthewstearn describes the Eldorado as a “hotel bar without the hotel,” an interesting proposition in an age when actual hotel bars seem desperate to disguise themselves as anything but. But Matthewstearn says he’s trying to capture the elegance and intrigue of classic movies, along with a bit of that “why not? I’m on vacation” energy as well. “You can expect food to come out on a silver platter with a cloche,” Matthewstearn says, an example of the sort of heightened, slightly cartoonish idea of elegance he’s going for. The spot did a first run over the weekend of July 17, and will return on Thursday, July 23, after some finishing touches.
As with many of his bars, there’s a mix of inspirations. Matthewstearn name drops the late Jacknife (“always beautiful, always comfortable”) and Bar Cecil in Palm Springs, and for that matter the timeless surreality of Palm Springs itself: “You’re like, am I in The Jetsons? Am I in a ’70s gay porn? Am I in an early 2000s pool party?” Matthewstearn muses. His wife Maya Matthews, a luxury-focused interior designer, created the look of the space, which is dripping with distinctive globe lamps and scalloped with undulating leather booths, the better to see and be seen in. The walls feature enormous sepia-toned Southwestern Gothic artworks from tagger-turned-oil painter Daniel Lopez.
Eldorado retains the former venue’s signature horseshoe bar, which curves through the room like an unusually successful game of Snake. It was a major appeal of taking over the space, Matthewstearn says, “it’s one of the few styles where when people come in they immediately belly up.” Despite its clubby precursors and the fairly raucous surrounding area, Matthewstearn says he wants the space to be a neighborhood bar most of the time: “Our goal is to have bartenders who engage in conversation with people and have a room where people talk to one another.”
The cocktail program is being put together by Panther Club’s Nate “Theo” Theobald who Matthewstearn credits as one of the go-to mixologists in the bar group. The menu is being built with high-volume weekend rush in mind, so the popular items are pre-batched and on tap. “When it’s really busy we want to be able to offer you the same drinks [as usual],” rather than the usual club default vodka soda or whatever beer’s nearest at hand.
Lucy’s by Lorenzo de Alicante of Lo’s Burgers is handling the food at Eldorado. | Ben Coleman/Eater Portland" data-portal-copyright="Ben Coleman/Eater Portland" />
Food, as with previous tenants in the space, is a residency with a bonus walk-up window for situations where you really need some calories but maybe can’t get past the door guy. Lucy’s by Lorenzo de Alicante of Lo’s Burgers is the current starter, and as indicated by the name, is built around the Jucy Lucy, the iconic Twin Cities style of extra-thick burger filled with cheese (AKA the philosophical opposite of a smash burger). The menu warns it takes about 20 minutes to cook all that beef, but the result is a hefty burger packed with molten cheese and punchy jalapeños.
And wonder of wonders in 2026, all the burgers come with a good portion of shoestring fries. There’s also plans for an Insta-friendly “seafood tower-type thing” piled with burgers, fries, chicken tenders, all the stuff that keeps dietitians up at night (Think: 2025 hot dog tower).
Dig-a-Pony and Lollipop Shoppe both earned reputations as aggressively hip destinations at the heart of the Eastside club scene, and Matthewstearn says he wants to maintain that gravitational pull. “Whether your goal was to fall in love or just have a fun night with your friends,” he recalls, “[they were] the kind of place where people always seem to end up.” With neighboring Morrison hotspots like Good Girl regularly full to capacity, that feels like a good bet these days. But while Lollipop Shoppe made a run at being a music venue, Matthewstearn says he’s taking Eldorado back to the pure bar days. Though there will be rotating DJs for folks to work up a sweat on a Saturday night: “I still want people stumbling in here, dancing and getting silly and all that.”
Eldorado is located at 736 SE Grand Avenue.
