First look at Loyal Legion Beaverton beer hall
In 6 short years Loyal Legion beer hall has become one of Portland’s most popular beer bars, this Saturday they open their second location in Beaverton in the building of a former bank. Following in the footsteps of their original location, Loyal Legion is developing a brand of taverns that take well worn and established old spaces and make them fresh and relevant again.
Loyal Legion Beaverton co-anchors the corner of SW Watson and Farmington Road in Beaverton’s burgeoning food and drink corridor with numerous Portland neighbors who have now moved west like Ex Novo Brewing, Big’s Chicken, Afuri ramen, Top Burmese, and soon Breakside Brewery. It’s also just the first expansion for the Loyal Legion brand that will soon migrate to California with a Sacramento location in Spring 2022.
Originally the Bank of Beaverton, and once a dance studio, the building at 4500 SW Watson Ave. nearly became a second location of Wayfinder Beer, but most closely resembles a stucco public library that would be more at home in southern California or New Mexico rather than the Portland suburbs. The bright white, clay shingled roof, and Spanish colonial-style architecture does not look anything like Loyal Legion from the exterior, but inside it repeats many familiar elements from the popular SE Portland taproom like heavily tiled walls, swanky leather booths, an island bar, and drop down orb lighting fixtures.
LL Beaverton is a 5,614 sq. ft. historic building erected in 1935, technically three floors including a basement prep kitchen and walk in cooler, and a small attic level mezzanine that looks down upon the 18’ ft high ceilinged pub and will function as a separate cocktail bar when the space is finished this coming January. The interior has a slightly smaller bar, but more private seating options and a separate section to relax in partitioned and quieter dining/drinking areas via an adjacent hall running alongside the main bar and the entire indoors can accommodate 150 seated.
The Beaverton taphouse has 70 draft lines, about 10 of which will be used for wine, ciders, seltzer etc. That is down slightly from the 99 taps in PDX, but to keep up with the early on established theme of “99 beers on the wall” the list will be supplemented by a selection of local, and rare bottles and cans for a total of atleast 99 beers to be had. Also like the OG flagship LL, they will remain all selections from Oregon. They have not skimped on the hard alcohol, a full cocktail menu and spirits list focuses on mid-tier and top shelf whiskey’s but covers the spectrum for whatever your tipple is. The forthcoming cocktail bar upstairs will have it’s own menu and selection to supplement the already extensive list on the beer bar side.
Loyal Legion Beaverton has an extensive liquor selection focusing on whiskey and bourbon
One major feature of LL Beaverton is the soon to be realized 3,000 sq. ft. and 100 seat courtyard drinking patio between the pub and their neighbors at Big’s Chicken. The brick laden and still in development patio comes at the expense of what was rare on-site parking, but is better put to use for outdoor drinking. The only negative being that it’s still a work in progress, but when finished will offer a covered pergola, and an open air section to catch some rays on brighter days.
The pub has a full kitchen that serves virtually the same menu as the one in Portland featuring all kinds of burgers, fried sandwiches, Olympia Provisions sausages, soups, salads, pretzels and all things delicious bar foods. It is also headed up by the same team running LL PDX, with general manager Adam Keefe, bar manager Herb Apon, and chef Will Johnson. All who plan to deliver a similar experience to Portland, but are looking out for differences in demographics and preferences in the Beaverton market such as nodding to the local breweries and up-and-coming nanos.
"We’ve been really interested in coming out to Beaverton for years,” says owner Kurt Huffman who estolls the virtues of the neighborhood and friendly relationship with the competition in what is quickly becoming Beaverton’s Restaurant Row. “It feels like all of us are building a very cool community of bars and restaurants on the west side.”
Loyal Legion Beaverton opens to the public this Saturday, November 13th at 4pm for evening and late night service as they hope to draw a crowd to sustain a midnight closing time and 2am on the weekends. In approximately 2 weeks they plan to start opening at 11:30am for lunch.
Loyal Legion Beaverton
4500 S.W. Watson Ave., Beaverton, Oregon 97005
HOURS:
Sunday - Thursday 4pm - Midnight
Friday - Saturday 4pm - 2am
Loyal Legion beer hall bar manager Herb Apon (left) and general manager Adam Keefe (right)