One of Portland’s best bars the Bit House Saloon will reopen on March 3rd with a new culinary pub partnership called the Bit House Collective. The tavern will shake off it’s previous menu of elevated Americana bar food and jump across the tropics for a selection of Filipino dive bar dishes designed to pair with Pono Brewing beers and a tropical cocktail list. The refreshed concept will merge three different local creative visions for food and drink under one common umbrella that aims to capture Island flavors fused into a western tavern.

Bit House Collective has largely left the setting and decor of the former Saloon intact, and it’s still a slice of old Portland charm. Spacious high ceilinged rooms and archways filled with exposed old brick, dim vintage lighting fixtures, leather seats, and cozy corners for private conversations and intimate make-out sessions. The impressively well-stocked bar will be a pleasure to be seated at when that is allowed once more, and a secluded back patio is partially covered and has a handful of fire pits.

Natasha Mesa, formerly of Deadshot, is taking her craft cocktail skills into the realm of playfully nostalgic and Island-themed drinks for Bit House. That aesthetic is front and center in drinks like the Mangonada, a juicy and spicy pepper Margarita-style cocktail served in a Capri-sun like pouch with fresh basil and a twizzler straw.

“I’m most excited about the raw talent and creative mindset of all our bar staff,” says Mesa. “Our goal is to create the most inclusive space for every type of drinker, while flexing our creativity to build new cocktail flavors and combinations in a fun way.”

The ‘Strawberry Soup’ cocktail is more traditionally presented in a rocks glass with one dense cube and a pot worth of fresh mint. Lemongrass brings the eastern influence, strawberry the Oregon flavor, and szechuan peppers the spice. There is a common theme of heat, sweet fruit and acid throughout many of the drinks and that extends to the food menu as well.

Bithouse Chef Carlo Lamagna opened his contemporary Filipino restaurant Magna Kusina in the former NoHo’s space on SE 26th and Clinton in late 2019. Along with his co-chefs Dante Fernandez and Roberto Almodovar, they will run the kitchen at Bit House Collective with an abbreviated bar food menu of modern takes on Filipino and American drinking foods under the name of Magna Kantina.

It’s unclear how authentic a Filipino Smash Burger is but Bit House delivers on the fusion that you might expect with a suitably over the top, crispy, fruity, sweet and tart double smash on a thick sesame bun. The double patty smash burger has an impressively splashy crunched inner cheese shell, with a sweet tropical pineapple-habanero bbq glaze, sour atcharra Filipino-style pickles which help cut the oily fats.

More authentic Filipino dishes like Sisig, Longipan, and Sinigang Shrimp Chips, beg for a return trip, as do the calling of Crab Fat Gravy Waffle Fries after a night on the town.

The “Inihaw na Mano” (aka chicken wings) are refreshingly less saucy or spice dusted than most, and instead rely on soft meaty drumsticks with an open flame crispy char. They are only lightly glazed with sweet soy and XO sauce and as such are one of the less sweet and most balanced items on the menu.

Add the “Bringhe” dish to the list of the lighter-healthier items on the menu, a vegetarian (vegan?) turmeric-coconut rice cake with mushroom conserva and seasonal pickled vegetables.

But perhaps the most shareable and eminently satisfying bar plates on the menu is the authentic “Lumpia” a sliced up plate of hand-sized servings of fried eggrolls stuffed with pork, carrots, onions, and mushrooms. Each is an oily, savory, crispy outside and soft and meaty inside that is absolutely enjoyable on it’s own but even better with the sweet and sour and spiced vinegar dipping sauces it comes with. It is a perfect bar food, it’s salty and buttery richness an easy finger food that you can crunch on between sips of a light and bright Mexican-style lager with blue agave from Pono Brewing.

Pono Brewing is one of the three partners featured at BHC, the Portland-based beer company traces their Hawaiian-inspired roots to 2013 and has built up a loyal following at local restaurants and taprooms over the past few years. Pono started as a contract brewery making small batches out of Zoiglhaus Brewing and more recently pivoted that success into an alternating proprietorship with Zoiglhaus and invested into their own fermentation tanks and a growing self-distribution business.

But until now there was no one location to find a vast selection of Pono Brewing’s beers, that changes with a new partnership at Bit House Collective. At opening the bar will feature five Pono beers on tap and another three from cans. Hopheads will look to the flagship El Garrotte west coast-style IPA with Simcoe, Mosaic, Centenial, and Cascade hops. But fruit beer fans know that Pono has built a reputation for pineapple beers which line up increasingly well with the food from Magna Cantina and instead reach for a 19.2oz can of the Pineapple Express Kolsch or the Mango to the Moon Hazy IPA. Feeling more adventurous? The farmhouse ale with botanicals herbs and spices from Aria Gin will no doubt pair up fantastically with one of Natasha Mesa’s cocktails.

“Under Head Brewer Larry Clouser, Pono has been making exceptional beer here in Portland for the last 5 years. As we don’t have a taproom of our own, this long-term tap takeover of Bit House will allow fans to find all our beers in one place,” says Pono Brewing’s Sales Manager and Hype Man Erick Russ. “With the island influence in a lot of our beers, Magna’s food and Natasha’s cocktails fit perfectly with how we like our beers to be experienced. On top of that, they are close friends who we love!”

Bit House Collective hours of operation are Tuesday - Saturday 4pm - 11pm, Sundays 2pm - 9pm, and closed on Mondays. They offer indoor and outdoor dining - strictly abiding by all COVID guidelines and safety measures - as well as to-go food and drink. The space is also available for private events. 

ABOUT BIT HOUSE COLLECTIVE:

Bit House Collective is a bar serving hospitality, inclusivity, creativity and island vibes through a collaboration between three of Portland's most innovative food and drink creators: Pono Brewing, Magna Kantina, and Mixtress Natasha Mesa. Under Head Brewer Larry Clouser, Pono Brewing has been making exceptional beer since 2016 for coveted tap lists and bottle shops across the Northwest; Bit House Collective is a place where fans can find Pono’s full selection of offerings on tap at all times. Natasha Mesa (formerly of Deadshot) and her passionate bar team flex their raw talent to develop intriguing new cocktail flavors and combinations layered on the classics within an inclusive space self-described as ‘Michelin Star Dive Bar.’ The crew behind celebrated Filipino restaurant Magna Kusina - Chefs Carlo Lamagna, Dante Fernandez and Roberto Almodovar - run Bit House’s food program as Magna Kantina, offering playful and punchy Filipino bar food featuring flavors found throughout the Pacific islands to complement the adventurous beverage program. These three forces (and long-time friends) bring exciting new energy to their 1892 historic building at the bustling corner of SE Grand and Morrison. Bit House Collective is paving the way for the new future of hospitality and rebirth of the Portland bar scene. Follow along at @bithousecollective