The 715 Inn

by Sam Soule for pdxguide.com

To the drinking neophyte looking to train for a life of romantic alcohol abuse: Have you tried the 715 Inn?

If you were like me -- intensely interested in music and books, virtually incapable of enlarging a suffocating social circle of fellow drinking geeks -- you are learning that there's nothing quite like throwing back whiskey shots and beer chasers in the company of cranky old men coughing up phlegm. Now THAT is reproachfully cool: if you're drinking in a place where a wet bar rag is considered both clean and dry, well, consider your maverick compulsion to buck "safe society" safely fulfilled.

Hopefully, the charm of these ramshackle hole-in-the-walls will rub off for you before your undergraduate degree is totally undermined, your second wife is walking out on you, and you find yourself holding my hand in the closing ceremony of local 12-Step meeting. (Lord help you if you start hitting the REAL snake-pits.) But until then: Have you tried the 715 Inn?

Those looking to embark on the school of fake hard knocks are encouraged to rush into the 715 and make this dreary way-stop-to-recovery their new hip life. It has just what you need: saggy retirees. This small corner tavern has the most consistent daytime patronage of sad old men in Portland -- that I know of, anyway -- guys who have been sitting in the 715 Inn drinking Hamms and lying about their golf game since the end of the Korean War. The room is pickled in wisdom.

There's nothing fancy about the 715 a run through your hamper won't fix. You don't dress for this place, just get up and go...just look at the staff. Whoever is tending bar is almost always wearing sweatpants that looked to have doubled as pajamas from the night before. Truly, this is not even a "come-as-you-are" kind of joint; this is a kind "come-as-you-hope-people-won't-take-you-as" place. And you kids looking to learn something, don't listen to the old folks around you, just look at them. This is where you learn the art of faking life from one drink to the next. Just like your favorite writer used to do. Oh, the glorious satisfaction that awaits.

At night the tenor of the 715 changes from washed-up geriatric to blue-collar and pathetically criminal. Drink here! Occasionally somebody stumbles into a knife-point. Bad-ass done bad. This is the kind of place where nothing is done right; even the stabbings have poor follow-through.

Occasionally the 715 tries to enlarge its customer base, perhaps sympathetically, in an effort to give its ever-expiring cast of barfly regulars a change of scenery. In recent years the 715 has hosted rock shows and DJ nights, though nothing is scheduled like that in the near future. Currently the 715 is making renovations to make it eligible to for a full liquor license -- which can't bode well for old-timers in the house. With the arrival of whiskey shots and beer chasers, the doors to a true snake-pit may be thrown open: Graduation Day.

At the moment, the floor of the 715 is being torn up to make way for wall-to-wall carpeting.

"So it will smell nice," explained a 715 bartender in gray sweatpants. And then she added, "For awhile, anyway."

Okay, kids, time for class.

The opinions expressed within are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of pdxguide.com or The Columbian Publishing Co.