The Crow Bar

By Sam Soule, for pdxguide.com

Crow Bar 3954 N Mississippi Ave Portland, OR 97227-1163 (503) 280-7099

Bracing sunlight falls through the windowed front of a very narrow tavern.

Potted plants, a juke box filled with proven alt-rock selections, one very slick pinball machine--all serve to introduce a classy space of historical and contemporary elements, North Portland's best new tavern, the Crow Bar.

Here we find stationed between a beautiful wooden bar and its grandly playing back piece, shaggy Patrick Puopolo, who speaks with quiet excitement about his latest collective venture.

This past January, Puopolo and his three partners opened the Crow Bar amid the quietly booming stretch of North Mississippi between Fremont and Shaver. "The one thing we're all about is neighborhood pubs," explains Puopolo. "We're trying to make it so everyone can come in and hang out and use it as their living room."

The Crow Bar It is not their first tavern. Puopolo and company can also lay claim to the Basement Pub, a popular watering hole located on 1028 SE 12th avenue that opened in 2001.

The styles of these two bars are different, but the tactics are the same: both businesses are tailored to the tenor of their community.

Whereas the Basement Pub has the familiar and embracing feel of a good friend's below-ground apartment--a fitting hang-out for a South East neighborhood known as a haven for slackers and Sixties-era idealists--the Crow Bar plays to a sense of redevelopment and history that has come to define an entrepreneurial collection of redeveloped, frontier-style buildings dressed out in freshly painted earth tones. It has been called "the Mississippi Renaissance."

"We were drawn by the energy and vibrancy of the area," says Puopolo.

"We were also taken by this space. The long, narrow space being a sort of traditional old Northwest style bar."

Most notably, that sense of history inspired both the original design and recycled materials used in the construction of the Crow Bar's bar and back piece, an impressive accomplishment built by the owners on Christmas Day and then transported piecemeal to the site in the back of an El Camino.

With much of the wood and brick used in the construction of the bar and bar back piece originating from the nearby ReBuilding Center--which re-claims potential waste from local redevelopment--the result has been a furniture set that captures the Crow Bar's spirit of historical and community integration (weighty terms rarely used to describe an establishment barely seven weeks old).

"We tried to do something that was drawn from traditional back bars but had a modern feel to it," says a rightfully proud Puopolo referring to the bar's graceful arched curves. "We thought we'd combine the two." Other nice combinations between the old and new at the Crow Bar: original exposed brick, hardwood floors, industrial modified hanging lights, and monthly artwork showcases.

It seems a lot of folks think the Crow Bar makes for a nice living room.

Throughout the week, neighborhood patrons crowd the bar and line the wall benches and two-tops at the Crow Bar. A dozen taps are on hand; the wine selection is nearly as diverse. In the back, space opens up past the bar to accommodate a red-topped pool table. Video poker is gratefully absent. Snacks of cheese, crackers, olive and salami can be had for a few dollars a serving. Technos may note Wi-Fi is available for enabled laptops.

When searching for the Crow Bar along Mississippi, look for the simple hanging sign depicting a crow perched on a crowbar, a bit of literal/graphic redundancy that has been noted by more than a few.

Not even two months old and the Crow Bar already has an endearing nickname.

The Crow-Crow.

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