#2602 - Anchor Inn, Lincoln City, OR - 8/24/2014

Historic Anchor Inn, Lincoln City, OR

We love this old motor inn and motel as a place to stay and enjoy the cozy pub inside, but it appears that they are now only open for select dates and/or larger groups. If it's available, it would be my favorite place to stay on the Oregon coast. Construction on the Taft Heights Motor Court began in 1942, faced some delays, then was completed in 1946. I'm not sure how old the pub portion is, but it seems to have been added only fairly recently. The bar, like the rooms and public spaces, has a welcoming old cabin feel and is crammed with vintage memorablia -- the surrounding grounds only slightly less so. If we can find a way to make it back with their new business model, we will eagerly do so.

Historic Anchor Inn Pub, Lincoln City, OR 

4417 S Hwy 101, Lincoln City, OR 97367 - (541) 996-3810
Bar Est. ? - Building constructed: 1942-1946
Web site: historicanchorinn.com - facebook
Reviews: yelp - oyster - fodors - tripadvisor 

#2601 - McMenamins Pub at Hotel Oregon, McMinnville, OR - 8/24/2014

McMenamins McMinnville, Hotel Oregon

McMinnville, Oregon, as I'm sure I do not have to explain to you, is the county seat and largest city (34,000) of Yamhill County. It has a quaint, very walkable downtown area and is best known today for pinot noirs and space aliens. The city has been the center of Oregon's wine country since the 1990s, with 14 nearby wineries in the region's American Viticultural Area (AVA). The downtown area very much reflects this, with tourist-friendly shops and restaurants that tend to be new and chic (do not look here for a weathered, old dive).

The space alien theme derives from the "McMinnville UFO photographs," printed on the front page of the McMinnville Telephone-Register and soon reprinted in LIFE Magazine. The city's annual UFO Festival, sponsored by McMenamins, is now second in size among such events only to the event in Roswell, New Mexico, near the site of a 1947 crash of a weather balloon extraterrestrial craft of inexplicable, unearthly properties.

These features are celebrated in small elements of the McMenamin's in town, in a four-story (tallest building in town), 1905 structure that has housed everything from a Greyhound bus depot to a banquet hall to a soda fountain. Constructed as the Hotel Elberton and today called the Hotel Oregon, it has a pub on the main floor, a rooftop bar (unfortunately closed during our visit) and a Cellar Bar with a back alley entrance, wine and live music. If you are from the northwest, I need not linger on the details of the decor or food -- it is yet another cozy place preserving a nice historic structure and featuring the paradigmatic McMenamins artwork and bric-a-brac along with solid food and beer options.

310 NE Evans St, McMinnville, OR 97128 - (503) 472-8427                    
Est. 1999 - Building constructed: 1905
Web site: mcmenamins.com - facebook 
Reviews: yelp - tripadvisor 

#2600 - The Slammer Tavern, Portland, OR - 8/24/2014

Slammer Tavern, Portland, OR

Barfly called it "one of Portland's oldest bars," even though I've read it was established only in 1979? It's a nifty little place though -- on the edge of an old industrial district, the outside looks like a ghetto autoshop and inside like a beachfront hippy bar. The low ceilings, small space, and year-round Christmas lights only add to the laid-back neighborhood dive goodness.

Bartender Ren, the Slammer Tavern, Portland, OR

500 SE 8th Ave, Portland, OR 97214 - (503) 232-6504
Est. 1979
Web site: facebook
Reviews: eater - wweek - punchdrink - beerchaser - barfly - thrillist - yelp 

#2599 - Rum Club, Portland, OR - 8/24/2014

MMMMmmmm, Rum Club.

"What's the most popular drink here?"
"The Rum Club Daquiri"
"What's the most popular drink among people with very good taste?"
"Everyone who comes here has very good taste."

I had a Rum Club Daquiri. It was good. Then I had a Mai Tai. It was good. And there's a bear with a fez.

720 SE Sandy Blvd, Portland, OR 97214 - (503) 265-8807
Est. 2011
Web site: rumclubpdx.com
Articles ranked: seriouseats - cocktailia - oregonlive - pdxmonthly - wweek - eater - yelp - tripadvisor - thrillist - portlandmercury - thedrinknation - 

#2598 - Luchador, Portland, OR - 8/23/2014

Luchador, Portland, OR

It's a bar in a theme of masked Mexican professional wrestlers because Portland.

Luchador, Portland, OR

4835 N Albina Ave, Portland, OR 97217 - (503) 517-9347
Est. 2014 - Closed 2014
Web site: luchadorpdx.com - facebook
Articles ranked: eater - wweek - yelp - tripadvisor - eater - oregonlive

#2597 - La Center Tavern, La Center WA - 8/23/2014

La Center Tavern, La Center, WA

Update: The La Center Tavern was renamed "4th Street Bar and Grill" in early 2015.

---

I'm sure that the current La Center Tavern has nicer drinks than a few years ago and has nicer food than a few years ago, and it may be more welcomed by a majority of the locals. But for fans of old historical places with lots of character, this is a travesty.

A real estate entry claims that this space has hosted a bar since 1914 (I've found La Center bars in city directories dating back to the 1880s, but they do not contain addresses). But the character promised by a few remaining shots of the old west style former exterior evaporates as you walk in the door. The nice back bar is still there -- it is said to have survived a big fire that destroyed most of the town, but most the decor is like a retirement home cafeteria, with ceramic chickens and all new furniture designed to look old timey. The liquors are confined to a dainty selection of spirits that lean toward flavored vodkas and fireball shots. The jolt from the knitting club theme comes only when you open the bathroom and suddenly seem to be doing your business in the back of semi truck. I can't imagine they will leave that very long -- they're probably shopping for the pink flowered wallpaper now.

What the what?!?!
La Center Tavern, La Center, WA

And yet outside there was a local spitting chaw into a cup and telling me the history of the back bar. He says a biker friend of his told him it was usually packed before the remodel. I don't know whether to believe any of these stories, and, God bless, I wish the current owners luck. But it's not my personal cup of tea, despite some old photos that make me think it used to be.

The old La Center Tavern

107 E 4th St, La Center, WA 98629 - (360) 263-9920                  
Est. ? - Building constructed: 1930/2015
Reviews: yelp - tripadvisor  

#2596 - Ariel Tavern, Ariel, WA - 8/23/2014

Ariel General Store and Tavern, Ariel, WA

The Ariel Tavern is well worth going out of your way for, but at the time I am posting this it is undergoing some very substantial renovation and the re-opening date is uncertain. If anyone unfamiliar with the owner and locals is considering going, I would check the owner's Facebook page and/or givn him a call first.

On this visit in August of 2014, we spoke with Bryan Woodruff, whose mother Dona Elliot was the owner, but who, Bryan informed us, was suffering from stage four kidney disease. I later learned that Dona passed away a little over a year later. Bryan inherited the store and pub, but not the business license, and the state apparently declined to grandfather it in and the store requires very substantial upgrades to state and county code before it can be re-licensed. Bryan is currently working on these and many other improvements. Normally I would feel a mild panic over a remodel of an old place like this whose charm arises largely from its evident age, its paucity of modernity, and the ramshackle accumulation curious artifacts over many years. However, a glance at the Facebook page indicates that Bryan is putting impressive work into restoring items to their previous place as he cleans and paints -- even cleaning off old bumper stickers with vinegar to replace them on newly painted beams.

Ariel Tavern, Ariel, WA

The work is in very large part a tribute to his mother, who purchased the place in 1990, and built on the decor and traditions of the place. The salient tradition is the annual D.B. Cooper celebration, which then owner Jermain Tricolor started in 1974. Cooper, you will recall, was the name used by an unknown man who parachuted from a hijacked Northwest Orient flight on November 24, 1971 with $200,000 in cash (over $1m in current dollars) tied around his waste, never to be found again. Authorities believe he did not survive to use any of the cash, but theories vary widely and there is no shortage of authors and amateur investigators among the hundreds who have descended each year on the Saturday after Thanksgiving upon this bar in tiny Ariel, on the southwest bank of Lake Merwin in southwest Washington state. The annual festivities are temporarily suspended for the remodeling, but Woodruff plans to resume as soon as the old bar is up to code and presentable.

Brian Woodruff, current owner, Ariel Tavern

The tradition started after the bar was used by many of the FBI agents and soldiers from Fort Lewis who participated in an extensive ground serach for Cooper in March 1972. The store appears to have been constructed here in 1929, and is unclear how soon it became a (legal) bar. The Mountain News stated that "Initially, the Ariel Store was built in 1929 to serve as a post office, grocery store, and pub for the workers building the nearby Merwin Dam across the Lewis River." This is probably largely true, with the exception of the "pub" part, as the dam was completed in 1931 -- i.e. before the end of prohibition. A local woman named Margaret Colf Hepola, who provided Dona Elliot a brief history of the area and appears to have known whereof she spoke, described it this way:

"The Ariel Post Office was moved five miles west of its old site onto the Northwestern Electric construction site at the west end of the project in 1927 to help get the mail to the workers. Local residents also had to pass through an inspection gate to get their mail. Following an encounter with a U.S. Postal Inspector, the Ariel Post Office was removed from the construction site to what had become the new location of the Runyan Store, also located at the west end of Merwin Dam and a short ways from the Northwestern Electric site.... I have childhood memories of traveling by horse and wagon to the old Ariel Store and buying penny candy. As a teen I joined other youth swimming in a nearby slough. Old Ariel was the meeting place for neighbors and friends to swim and picnic together. The old Ariel location is gone forever and now lives only in my memories." 

Ariel Tavern, Ariel, WA

Much to my regret I have never made it here for the big celebration of America's only unsolved skyjacking case. Since I would very much like to do this some day -- and because I just generally love this old bar -- I am delighted to see that someone who cares about the bar, its past, and its artifacts is working to reopen it. It will be high on my list for future roadtrips when I hear it is open again.

Ariel Tavern, Ariel, WA

   For more great old bars in Washington state see my map.

     

288 Merwin Village Rd, Ariel, WA 98603 - (360) 225-7126
Bar Est. ? - Building constructed: 1929
Previous bars in this location: None known
Web site: facebook
Reviews: themountainnewswa - themountainnewswa