As Oakland Pride returns this year, the city’s LGBTQIA+ community has one more reason to celebrate. Alongside the annual festival’s Latin Stage, co-produced by longtime nightlife promoter and club owner Valentino Carrillo, a brand-new queer nightclub is opening just two blocks from his first venue, Que Rico. Appropriately named Next Level, the space represents both a personal milestone for Carrillo and a new chapter for Oakland’s LGBTQIA+ nightlife scene.
Oakland Pride has grown into one of the Bay Area’s most dynamic celebrations of queer identity, centering the city’s diversity and community spirit. According to the website, the festival launched in 2010, decades after San Francisco established its own Pride, with a mission to highlight Oakland’s distinct cultural mix and provide a more family friendly, grassroots alternative.
Over the years it has expanded to include multiple performance stages, a children’s area and a parade that showcases the city’s LGBTQIA+ communities of color. Today, Oakland Pride stands as both a party and a political statement, and ultimately as an affirmation that queer culture thrives on the East Bay side of the bridge.
Carrillo’s story is rooted in Oakland. A gay Latino who has lived in the city since 2005, he spent the past two decades building spaces where queer people can gather, dance and feel safe. Before launching Que Rico, Carrillo worked in operations and marketing at two legendary Oakland clubs, Club 21 and Bench and Bar, until both closed in 2019. When the pandemic hit, many thought the city’s queer nightlife might never recover. But in April 2021, Carrillo opened Que Rico in the heart of downtown. The club quickly became Oakland’s most popular LGBTQIA+ spot: a hub for drag shows, Latin dance nights and Pride after-parties.
For Carrillo, Que Rico’s opening also marked a full-circle moment, with former colleagues now part of the spaces he leads.
“A lot of the staff and performers at Que Rico are people I worked with at Club 21 and Bench and Bar,” the club owner said.
That sense of continuity carries into his newest project. Next Level, which soft-opened on Thursday, occupies the former Level 13 nightclub space. The name is a nod to the building’s history and to the “next level” in Carillo’s nightlife ventures. While Que Rico leans into its Latino roots with Friday nights dedicated to reggaetón, cumbia and salsa, Next Level will broaden the offerings with hip-hop, Top 40 and big-room dance parties. Carrillo envisions the two clubs working in tandem, allowing guests to float between distinct but complementary vibes.
For Carrillo, representation is personal. As a gay Latino, it’s his priority to create events where queer Latinos feel at home while also expanding into general-market programming that welcomes all. His background in marketing and graphic design—studied first at Sacramento City College and later honed in San Francisco—made him a self-sufficient operator.
“I do a lot of my own lighting, sound and promotion,” he said. “I learned not to rely on outside employees, but to build skills that keep the business sustainable.”
That independence has been crucial in weathering challenges. Que Rico has been broken into more than a dozen times since opening, but Carrillo is determined not to let setbacks define Oakland’s queer nightlife.
“With the new space, we’ve made sure to fortify it in a way so that it’s more secure,” he said.
Safety, he emphasizes, goes beyond locked doors. For him, true success means uplifting Oakland’s LGBTQIA+ community: Creating spaces where joy, visibility and inclusivity thrive. In the short term, that looks like a packed Pride weekend: a soft opening Thursday night, a Que Rico block party after the festival on Sunday and Pride After Dark in front of Que Rico on 15th Street to close things out.
“I want people to have a great time and feel safe at our parties,” Carrillo said.
[Ed. note 9/3: This article has been corrected to show the updated location of Pride After Dark.]
