Last Ditch Bar in Greenfield, Massachusetts, announced Monday on Instagram that it will close “effective immediately” except for already booked events, with a full shutdown planned by winter.
The lesbian watering hole, launched in 2025 by three housemates, said it would need “new owners ASAP” to survive. Jackie Matellian, 47, the bar’s remaining owner, has been running the operation alone after her co-founders stepped away, according to details that emerged during a turbulent community meeting last month.
“We are SOFT CLOSING effective immediately, all BOOKED events will CONTINUE, otherwise we are CLOSED,” the bar wrote in its Monday Instagram post. “Love and solidarity to all.”
The closure follows weeks of intense backlash that began when Last Ditch attempted to boost struggling sales by making face masks optional on Saturday nights only. The bar maintained its mask requirement on all other days of the week, but the partial rollback triggered an explosive response from segments of the local queer community.
“It is with love we inform our immunocompromised disabled divas we will be opening Saturday nights as mask optional,” the bar wrote in an August Instagram post announcing the change.
Critics flooded the bar’s social media with heated condemnation. “I hope your venue gets firebombed for robbing my fellow immunocompromised people of their Saturday plans just to scrape extra revenue from ablists [sic],” one commenter wrote, according to reporting on the controversy. “People like you kill disabled people in the name of your own leisure and convenience,” wrote another. A third added: “Just say you’re being complicit in a mass disabling event and get it over with.”
The backlash translated into real financial damage. Previously busy nights emptied out as organized boycotts took hold, compounding sales declines that had already been plaguing the business.
Last Ditch’s financial model had drawn skepticism even before the mask controversy. The bar operated with policies stating “Nobody will be barred from entry due to lack of funds” and “Poor and unhoused people are welcome in the space.”
On September 11, Matellian attempted to address the mounting crisis at a monthly community meeting. The gathering turned volatile. Matellian broke down in tears, revealing that she was the last of the original three housemates still running the bar, was carrying a business loan, and had been forced to live in her car to keep up with payments.
“We have put our lives on hold to foster networks of care, resources, and a home base for organizing,” the bar wrote Monday in its closure announcement. “It’s time we pass it on.”
The bar gained broader attention after a Boston Globe article last month chronicled the mask policy dispute and its fallout, bringing national scrutiny to the small western Massachusetts city’s internal conflict over COVID-era safety protocols in queer spaces.