Aqua Key West Is Closed. Its Owner Is Now Facing an Eviction Suit in Tampa.

Aqua, the longtime drag bar at 711 Duval Street, is closed. The Aquanettes played their final numbers on that stage on July 5, in front of a room with no seats left, and it went dark the following day. Its manager told staff on Facebook three days before the doors shut what had happened: “Everyone, I'm sorry to tell you this but we have been evicted from the Aqua (711 Duval St.) location,” Brianlee Pavlicek wrote on July 3. “It breaks my heart, but I tried everything I could to help us avoid this, but it's beyond me.”

Aqua and the Back Bar occupied the 711 Duval half of the Aquaplex complex, and both went dark together. The other half — the Birdcage Cabaret and 22&Co, in the building around the corner on Angela Street — stayed open, and the plan at the time was for the Aquanettes to keep performing at the Birdcage.

That plan has since been thrown into doubt. On July 23, Out South Florida reported that the Birdcage in Key West and AquaPlex in Fort Lauderdale — the venue on Oakland Park Boulevard, which some coverage refers to by that neighborhood name — were both being closed by their parent company, with final shows that weekend. We should be precise about what that is and isn't: it is an announcement, not a confirmed closure. No outlet has since reported either room as having actually shut, and the Birdcage's own page is still publishing a Tuesday-to-Sunday schedule. If you're planning around either, call first.

The owner

All of these rooms belong to Pride Holdings Group, an Orlando company that trades over the counter and was previously called Parliament House Enterprises. It describes itself as acquiring and operating hospitality, entertainment and lifestyle assets serving the LGBTQ+ community and its allies — a roll-up of gay venues.

In Tampa, its Johnsons venue is now the subject of an eviction complaint. Landlord GO Investment Holdings filed on July 9 in Hillsborough County seeking over $50,000, naming Pride Holdings Group, Johnsons, Albert Whitehead and James M. Colunga. Watermark Out News, which obtained the filing, reports that Whitehead and Colunga are listed in it as guarantors of the venue's 2023 lease; our reading is that this is a different thing from being accused of running the business. The landlord alleges the company bought the assets around August 2025 without notifying it and has operated “albeit without paying rent,” citing a June 2026 default of $7,724.87 and at least four earlier defaults in the preceding twelve months. Those are allegations in a pending lawsuit. None has been tested in court.

Earlier in the year, the group's Lucky's Bar & Nightclub in West Palm Beach closed — Watermark cites the South Florida Sun Sentinel for that. And on July 21 the company announced the retirement of co-founder and former chief executive Michael Barrett, saying he had voluntarily returned more than 20% of its common stock to the corporate treasury. Out South Florida reports the share price collapsed in April and has sat around a nickel since.

What the company says

Joshua Cooper, the group's director of operations, contacted Watermark after publication to say the Tampa venue has since covered its rent through the end of July, and that the missed payments happened because “we had two CFOs that were dismissed from the company prior and information was not properly handed over to be able to actually make the rent payments.” He said the group expects paperwork giving it until mid-January to vacate, which he called “actually very agreeable to us because the landlord does not maintain the building and it's quite expensive repairing a building that … was not taken care of prior to the tenancy,” and that another Tampa Bay location will be running before it leaves.

Johnsons Tampa put it more bluntly on July 22, posting that “we aren't going anywhere!” and “Johnson's is here to stay! Thanks everyone for the years of support!! Stay tuned for some exciting announcements!”

The company also says it is advancing a pipeline of acquisitions and expects to announce more over the coming weeks and months.

If you're going to Key West

Aqua and the Back Bar are closed — if you find either still listed as open anywhere, including in our own directory while we catch up, that's a stale listing rather than good news. 22&Co, at 504 Angela Street, is open. The Birdcage, in the same building, has announced final shows but we cannot confirm it has closed, so call ahead. 801 Bourbon Bar and Bobby's Monkey Bar have no connection to any of this and are trading normally.

Our read: the thing worth watching isn't one bar losing a lease — Duval Street has been turning over bars for as long as it has existed. It's what happens when the landlord of your local becomes a line item in somebody's acquisition strategy.