The first car Quinn Matthewstearn’s owned was a 1979 Cadillac Eldorado. One of Cadillac’s most popular models, the sleek car represented compact luxury, which Matthewstearn drove for 15 years. “It was awesome,” he says.
Behind the wheel once again, Matthewstearn’s newest bar owes its namesake to the Eldorado. “We wanted the place to feel like luxury is accessible for everyone, and nothing screams that for us like an old Cadillac,” he says. Eldorado joins Matthewstearn’s portfolio of bars around Portland, which includes Jackie’s, Side Eye and Sugar Hill.
Opening in early summer 2026, Eldorado will be located on 736 SE Grand Ave. in East Portland, which held the recently closed Lollipop Shoppe, and Dig a Pony before that. “It’s such a great corner and such a beacon of Portland nightlife for a long time. We really wanted to put our hat in the ring to bring that back,” Matthewstearn says. He’s opening the bar alongside long-time partner David Hall and Nathan Theobald, the same team that owns Panther Club around the corner.
“We want to see that lower east side come back to what it was, pre-Covid,” Matthewstearn says. Portland, as a whole, has struggled to recover in the years following the initial coronavirus outbreak, still showing a significant gap in pedestrians compared to 2019. “It takes people, one door at a time, to start reopening things and trying to make offerings that will get people to go to those neighborhoods that have been somewhat abandoned.”
In getting people to come down to Eldorado, Matthewstearn says, “fun is the name of the game,” harkening back to the role that Dig a Pony played in the neighborhood before it closed in June 2022. Eldorado aims to create a comfortable, beautiful space that still maintains a playful energy. Guests will find twists on familiar classics in Eldorado’s cocktail and mocktail menu, and Eldorado’s food program will come from Lorenzo de Alicante, the owner of the popular food cart Lo’s Burgers.
Portland’s foot traffic might not be the only pothole ahead of Eldorado, as alcohol consumption reaches record lows across the country, hitting restaurants and bars particularly hard. Despite these overarching trends, Matthewstearn feels good.
“I feel that people are so locked-in digitally, that they’re looking for third spaces to be social, whether they drink alcohol or not,” he says.”I feel that people are really here, not as much because we have amazing, bespoke cocktails, but because they’re looking for in-person social interaction, and a bar has always been a great place for that.”
