Bar hopping, the pub crawl…Alaskans refer to it as the line of traps. Whatever you call it, a night out jumping from bar to club to pub has been an unacknowledged pastime for many on the prowl for a good time. And Portland offers just the eclectic array of bars to provide a good foundation for running amok.
Believing in the theory of excess in moderation, two Vanguard editors, Richard “Dick” Oxley and Robert “Sporty Bob” Britt—followed by a group of friends picked up along the way—headed out onto the streets of Downtown Portland with the intent of experiencing its diverse bar scene.
The sports bar
Marathon Taverna
1735 W Burnside St.
Typical drink
Pitcher of Busch
Random overheard conversation
“You can recover from getting kicked in the balls, but getting stabbed in the eye is so much worse.”
The first stop on our magical journey of boozing—the Marathon. If only for name alone, it seemed to be the best place to kick off a night of drinking. It’s a neighborhood sports bar in every sense of the term.
They have a huge wraparound bar and if the stools are all taken, there are plenty of tables to go around. The Marathon sports three pool tables and there are enough televisions on the walls to ensure a decent view of whatever game is on.
Despite the cozy feel, our trip to the Marathon was ill timed. There were Ultimate Fighting Championship matches on, so a younger, testosterone-fueled crowd replaced the usual crowd of drunken neighborhood regulars. Nonetheless, we had a job to do—bring on the booze.
While pondering the stiffness of our drinks, it occurred to us that the Marathon’s location is possibly one of its best attributes. Just a block away from PGE Park and situated along Burnside right off Interstate 405, the ‘Thon is a good place to frequent for those living in Goose Hollow or in Northwest Portland.
The classy bar
Saucebox
214 SW Broadway
Typical drink
A house-infused something with something else
Random overheard conversation
Patron: “What’s the shittiest American beer you have?”
Waiter: (Clearly thrown off) “Umm… We have Mirror Pond and Bridgeport IPA.”
Down Burnside a ways was a perfect offset to the Marthon’s testosterone-soaked atmosphere, the Saucebox. Trendy is the name of the game at this place. Since it was a Saturday night, seating was limited and we had to wait, albeit briefly, to get a table…outside…in the cold. Perhaps they smelled the machismo from the Marathon, still fresh on our clothes.
With no time to spare, our group scoured the drink menu for suitable beverages to fit the upscale vibe of the Saucebox. The drink list read more like a Mad-Lib than a menu, with nearly everything featuring some kind of house-infused liquor served with sliced or muddled fruit. All the same, the mixologists at the Saucebox know what they are doing.
The Maker’s Mark Whiskey Sour was a perfect blend of tart and sweet, and it came garnished with enough citrus to fill a fruit hat, but it was no match for the made-to-share “pineapple” drink. A mix of muddled fruit, juice and pineapple-infused rum, this cocktail is served in an actual pineapple and will ensure that you stand out in a crowd, as Rich found out.
The Saucebox is so chic that they give you a postcard with your bill. That’s sure to come in handy the next time the urge to share, by post, a fondness for a trendy restaurant hits.
With our hipness and level of inebriation on the mend, it was time to continue the voyage.
The nerd bar
Ground Kontrol
511 NW Couch St.
Typical drink
A tallboy of Pabst Blue Ribbon or Miller High Life
Random overheard…noises
Flippers launching pinballs, and the theme music from Star Trek: The Next Generation
Bring your love for old-school video games but check your sense of smell at the door, because the pinball wizards at Ground Kontrol seem to prefer dumping their quarters into video games over washing machines. All the same, this was just the place to bring us down from the snooty, entitled vibe of the previous establishment.
There was no need for us to ponder a drink list at this barcade—aluminum-can-infused High Life all around!
Already in good spirits, our collective mood was only increased by the joys of Donkey Kong, Centipede and over 25 functioning pinball machines. It was Reaganomix Night, so DJs Nate C. and I (heart) U provided the perfect 1980s soundtrack to dump quarter after quarter into the games.
A couple rounds of drinks and $5 in quarters later, it was time to once again get our show on the road.
The strip joint
Magic Gardens
217 NW Fourth Ave.
Typical drink
Cheap beer and a shot
Random overheard conversation
A certain opinion editor: “I owned that pool table.”
No night of drinking is complete without the obligatory trip to a sin bin that is a Portland strip club, and with countless dens of debauchery available in the city we threw caution—and good taste—to the wind and went straight to the closest one. Two stumbling blocks later, we were at Magic Gardens.
On a scale from one to syphilis, the Garden is somewhere around a comfortable hepatitis C. This hole in the wall is all that you would expect from a divey strip club in Old Town/Chinatown. There’s one stage, one pool table and one old lady tending the bar. Stocked with plenty of bar flies and a welcoming character, Magic Gardens is the Cheers of strip joints.
Two dancers took turns working the stage, and Rich hit the pool table. As we ordered drinks from Nana behind the bar, one dancer coming off the stage took a seat at a nearby stool. Preparing for the standard offer to buy her an overpriced drink, we were surprisingly greeted with genuine conversation over the current state of the Portland Trail Blazers roster.
As our visit to the Garden continued, and no doubt the result of another round of drinks, our group loosened up. By the time we exited/pulled Rich away from the pool table, it seemed that we were dancing more than the dancers.
The biker bar
Kelly’s Olympian
426 SW Washington St.
Typical drink
A high-octane whiskey
Random overheard conversation
“I think I need to order food—lots and lots of greasy, bar food.”
We roamed past taco carts and a car accident and found ourselves at the door of Kelly’s Olympian, our final destination for the evening. Kelly’s sports a long bar and plenty of grease coming out of the kitchen window. It’s a great place for any time of night to just hang or to catch a local punk show in their adjoining venue. Vintage motorcycles hang above you at the bar, providing unique eye candy, while classic neon lights from another time illuminate the bar.
But what we wanted from Kelly’s was food. Robert made an attempt at their bacon cheeseburger while Rich ate half an order of mac ‘n’ cheese wedges that he didn’t end up spilling on the floor next to a classic Indian motorcycle. The combination of food-induced drowsiness and the fact that the bars were closing caused our band of merry men to hit the road, via a designated driver of course.