Once a month, A Brunch of Drag brought the San Marcos queer community together at The Davenport. On Sept. 22, the event held its final show before the venue shut it down.

Eileen Dover, drag artist and performer, hosted A Brunch of Drag every fourth Sunday of each month for the past two years at The Davenport on South Guadalupe Street. She said the last show, which celebrated the event’s two-year anniversary, was sold out, which typically consisted of 125 to 150 people.

A typical Brunch of Drag started at 2 p.m. with an afternoon filled with mimosas, music and performances all while surrounded by the local queer community.

“Regulars started to get familiar with when it starts, what happens, when the queens walk. They know everything at this point, especially the ‘loyals’…,” Dover said. “There’s so much happening in our real world and reality, so our show was about taking people into drag fantasy. If you need to cry, cry, if you need to laugh, laugh – you got to feel everything but don’t feel uncomfortable. That was our Sunday.”

The morning after the last show, Dover sent a message to The Davenport’s staff, as usual, to thank them for their work on the brunch. A few minutes later, the permanent staff who worked the brunches were fired.

“[The staff] got a phone call by the owner that said they were terminated,” Dover said. “They said they can no longer pay the staff what they’re asking and they’re moving forward with someone else. It was really sudden, right after a huge, successful drag brunch… and it was primarily the queer staff, the people that have made our brunch successful, [who were fired].”

After hearing the news, Dover reached out to the owner to discuss the future of A Brunch of Drag. However, she said the owner would not commit to a meeting. Instead of scheduling a time to talk, the owner texted her two weeks later, saying they could no longer afford the showcase and it would be paused until further notice.

Dover said the expenses for the Sunday brunch include payments for the DJ, the host and the drag performers. The total cost varies depending on how many performers The Davenport books, but typically runs “a couple hundred dollars or so once a month.”

“[The owner] just really didn’t care to have a conversation,” Dover said. “We’ve been here for two years. We’ve been making you money. We were making profit. The conversation could have been ‘what can we do to change that? If we’re not making numbers, can we have a meeting to talk about maybe decreasing the budget for our show?’… but it was just a lack of care.”

Gavin Miranda, president of Bobcat PRIDE and former dancer at Stonewall Warehouse, said he feels the queer community in San Marcos is being pushed out.

Stonewall Warehouse was the only dedicated gay bar between South Austin and San Antonio until it shut down in January 2023. After Stonewall closed, additional bars and venues stepped up to host drag performances, such as The Porch and The Railyard.

“I immediately got flashbacks of Stonewall because I found out through my dance troupe manager the same [way],” Miranda said. “ Like, ‘the owner has sold the place. We’re not having shows there anymore, and we need another venue.’ And here we are two years later, and we still haven’t found that venue.”

Miranda said he believes if San Marcos had more queer people owning these businesses, the community would not be seeing the same closures.

“Once we plant our feet in the ground, something comes by and rips us out,” Miranda said. “I feel like we’re trying so hard to find a space, [and] the moment something like [A Brunch of Drag] gets our hopes up, I feel like it’s just ripped away from us… [businesses] say they’re allies, but they’re not actually an ally.”

Dover said she sees similarities in the closings of Stonewall and A Brunch of Drag, largely due to the lack of conversations between the business and the performers.

“I didn’t think it was gonna impact people as much as the Stonewall situation, which I think is also a similarity, since people [are] so distraught about what’s happening,” Dover said.

The Davenport’s website specifically states the San Marcos location is “Women, Minority and LGBTQIA+ led,” in contrast to their other two locations in Montrose and Clear Lake. However, A Brunch of Drag performer Xtra said she never saw the owner at a show.

“I’ve never met the owner, never once has he shown up to a show,” Xtra said. “He doesn’t care what the show looks like as a visual. Unfortunately, it is the people in power who have no understanding of the day to day business, or the events that they throw or the things they sign their name on to.”

Dover said despite the drag brunches lasting for two years, there was never a formal contract between The Davenport and Dover or the other drag performers. However, they were already discussing future plans before The Davenport pulled the plug on the Sunday brunch.

“Drag is not unionized,” Xtra said. “We don’t have laws protecting us. Businesses are allowed to, just right before the show, cancel on us…[businesses] don’t ever talk to us like we’re business people, but at least the good drag queens, they’re all business people.”

Miranda said if San Marcos does not create queer spaces, then students will seek them out elsewhere by traveling to bigger cities, such as Austin.

Dover envisions securing a larger, permanent venue in San Marcos where drag performers and the queer community can live freely and come together to create a consistent queer space.

“[A Brunch of Drag] became like loyalty, it had consistency, and I think people really reacted well to that,” Dover said. “I think [the closure is] only igniting me to produce more shows, and open up the idea of just being more inclusive and having consistency of doing drag more often. We’re hoping that we might not even have a pause. We might be back before the end of the month.”

The University Star reached out to The Davenport for an interview but received no response.