During COVID, creativity is king. Portland breweries and taprooms are currently in the midst of winterizing their operations for safe indoor and outdoor drinking options that will keep their customers coming back. Imperial Bottle Shop & Taproom has pivoted from indoor service pre-pandemic to home delivery, to outdoor only, and now to a visually striking and welcome covered indoor and outdoor seating that highlights local artists and the DIY spirit that local small businesses often embody.

Beginning this week, Imperial will open for indoor service for the first time since the beginning of the shutdown in March. While you can now have a beer indoors, the taproom still wanted to make safety their top priority and being able to comfortably drink outside is key.

“I didn’t want to just do tents and plastic and a super sterile type environment,” says Imperial co-owner Alex Kurnellas. “We have gone to places…it’s great to be out but if you go out you want to have fun and if your in a space that’s uncomfortable you don’t have as much of that experience.”

Newly erected this week are three A-Frame outdoor structures hand built by Kurnellas and friends, each have comfortable seating for four and still promote airflow. The design was inspired by similar structures that Kurnellas and his wife and business partner Shawn Stackpoole saw while visiting Hama Hama Oyster farm on the Olympic Peninsula in September.

“I saw something that I could build pretty easily and cheaply. Hopefully we will be able to go back to some sort of normality eventually so I didn’t want to invest tons of money in stuff,” says Kurnellas.

“We built a village!” adds Stackpoole.

Beginning today, November 5th, Imperial’s SE Division St. taproom will begin an optional reservation system on Open Table for their pandemic airflow separated seating indoor or out. The visually striking barriers have already been attracting locals who appreciate the handmade quality, and interesting decorative themes that represent pride, a festive Oregon winter home, and a pacific northwest cabin inspired by an A-frame party house on the side of the mountain where Kurnellas and Stackpoole first met. The seating is still being built out with more features like christmas decorations, lights, space heaters and partial clear siding to one half of the structures.

“They have already garnered a fair amount of attention just by people walking by,” says Kurnellas.

“It’s nice because you are protected but you are still outside,” adds Stackhouse.

Since the indoor taproom has always been a more intimate space, Kurnellas and Stackpoole never felt it would be safe to reopen inside for their customers or the staff. So they have been outdoors only since March. But the past 8 months have given them time to figure out the right procedures and learn a lot more about COVID-19 and safety protocols.

“We didnt really feel that comfortable with what the state was requiring, which is just 6 feet of distance” says Kurnellas. “it didn’t feel like it was quite enough.”

So they erected physical barriers or room dividers that keep people separate, block direct particles from transferring table to table but also encourage airflow. One major factor in reopening inside was not requiring servers to come directly into the rooms within breathing space of customers or vice versa. So the setup includes a small table outside each room divider where beverages will be dropped off.

“My very first sushi restaurant I ever went to had these tatami rooms that you could rent for larger parties where you could sit on the floor and they have the paper sliding walls, and I always loved that,” says Kurnellas on how he drew inspiration for the indoor arrangement. “I didn’t want to do the plexiglass shields, I wanted to do something softer and more familiar, and just kind of unique and fun.”

He came up with tatami room wall dividers but instead of plain white paper, they would put art from different local artists that could be swiped out and change over time. The dividers function as art gallery displays as well, and in the future the works may even be available for sale.

Imperial Bottle Shop & Taproom - SE Division

3090 SE Division St, Portland, OR 97202

HOURS:

Wednesday:3:00 PM - 10:00 PM

Thursday: 3:00 PM - 10:00 PM

Friday:3:00 PM - 10:00 PM

Saturday:12:00 PM - 10:00 PM

Sunday:12:00 PM - 10:00 PM

Reserve a table here (walk-ups available too)