In some very sad news for the queer nightlife scene in San Francisco, Oasis, the nightclub co-founded in 2015 by D'Arcy Drollinger and the late Heklina, is planning to shut its doors after New Year's Eve.

In a blog post Monday, Drollinger shares that "the rising cost of operations, paired with declining attendance and sales, have put us in a financial loss for quite some time and made sustaining Oasis, in its current form, untenable." The club has had to pay for added security and insurance since an armed robbery in July 2024, which has reportedly further impacted the club's sustainability.

Drollinger adds that, while the decision to close was "impossibly difficult," "the spirit of Oasis lives on through Oasis Arts," the production arm of the nightclub that is one of the partners in the soon-to-be-reopened Castro Theatre.

"Oasis Arts was created to foster that creativity and envisioned a world touched by queer joy beyond the walls of Oasis itself," Drollinger writes. "Oasis Arts will continue and we look forward to bringing this art to new venues and places around San Francisco, and beyond."

While Oasis has seemed to be continually popular, particularly for its weekend drag shows and club nights, it sounds like the venue has run into a problem that is dogging many other bars and nightclubs across the city since the pandemic. As the Chronicle reported just today, owners of nightlife businesses crowded into a panel discussion a couple months ago at the Entertainment Commission's annual summit, seeking to answer the question, "Where did our customers go and how do we get them back?"

Many business owners have complained in the last couple of years that their clientele has aged and some aren't going out as much at night, and fewer people in their 20s are showing up to take their place — either because they don't drink as much as older generations, or because they're seeking out different social and entertainment spaces. And whatever business momentum many of them had before the pandemic hit has never fully recovered.

In the local world of queer nightlife, one of the biggest blows in the early pandemic was the closure of The Stud, which last year had a welcome rebirth in a new space on Folsom Street. And the Castro just saw the opening of Rikki's, a new women's sports bar, and last year's opening of Bar 49 also activated another vacant spot on the same block of Market Street.

One of the city's oldest queer bars, The Cinch on Polk Street, was recently saved in a change of ownership, with a longtime bartender taking the helm.

Oasis emerged in 2015 on the heels of Heklina's success with Mother, the drag showcase that succeeded Trannyshack and that originated at The Stud in mid-1990s. In addition to being the Saturday home of Mother, the club became a cabaret that hosted Drollinger productions like Shit and Champagne, and the Rocky Horror musical. And its stage has hosted virtually every big-name performer from the Rupaul's Drag Race universe.

Oasis survived the pandemic and even funded a rooftop renovation and other improvements thanks to Shuttered Venue Operator Grant money and a campy all-day telethon that raised $270,000. But more recently, Drollinger put on a telethon to "Save the Oasis" on March 6 that only raised $50,000 of its $400,000 goal.

She tells the Chronicle that things have become particularly dire in recent months and, "I’ve cashed in the majority of my retirement account to keep this going."

There will still be big parties at Oasis for Up Your Alley (Dore Alley) this weekend and Folsom Street Fair weekend, in addition to their weekly lineup of events, and Drollinger is promising "a New Year’s Eve Spectacular."

"We have a beautiful and diverse roster of events to close out the Best of Oasis in style," Drollinger says, encouraging everyone to "Come out to Oasis LOTS in our final months!"

Also, she's encouraging everyone to donate to Oasis Arts, which will continue to present queer performance and events at other venues in the future.