Portland-Area Breweries make difficult choices on reopening indoors
Baerlic Brewing SE Piehall will reopen indoors on Friday
This Friday many Oregonians will see the inside of their favorite pubs for the first time since the fall. Though Oregon governor Kate Brown has allowed bars and restaurants to serve patrons outdoors only, some brewpubs and taprooms didn’t bother reopening at all based on those restrictions. Beginning February 12th the residents of Oregon’s most populous county can again begin drinking and dining indoors at 6’ ft spaced establishments that can only allow 25% of their occupancy.
However not all of our favorite brewpubs will choose to do so, some opting to stick with their leaner but successful to-go and wholesale business models, or continuing to exploit new outdoor areas and avoid the risk of indoors.
REOPENING
Deschutes Brewery Portland Public House, and the Bend brewpubs will reopen at noon this Friday for the first time since fall.
Zoiglhaus Brewing, which hasn’t been open indoors or out since November, will resume service on Saturday, 2/13. With a limited but full food menu, the pub will be serving from 4-8:30pm 7 days a week in the craft underserved southeast Lents neighborhood.
Baerlic Brewing has been an inspiration for many small taprooms and breweries as they have shifted from one business model to another. The pandemic kept everyone on their toes, from home delivery to opening one of the best beer gardens in town, Baerlic has done better than most. Still the timing did not work out well when they pivoted to a spacious new indoor “pizzahall” taproom in their adjacent space to the southeast Portland brewery. Baerlic pie hall was set-up well for spacing with plenty of ventilation and touchless service model, but still only had 5 days in operation before the November 18 freeze. As the space is already equipped for a reopening, co-founder/president Rik Hall tells us “We are taking full advantage of the new tier rules and will be opening 11am Friday. We trust the numbers and the system and feel good about it!”
McMenamins Bagdad Theater will reopen for movie screenings on Friday February 12th. The historic theater and pub has been open for outdoor seating only, but hasn’t shown a film since last March. The spacious high-ceilinged big screen room has a balcony level and plenty of space to spread out for social distanced screenings with beer and pizza. Capacity will be limited to 50 and everyone must wear a mask in the theater when not eating or drinking. They will be showing Promising Young Woman and The Croods: The New Age.
Grains of Wrath PDX, Washington-based brewery opened their satellite location on N. Williams Ave. shortly before the freeze and were shut down with no outdoor seating initially. Now reopened with a few tables outside, the staff plans to reopen a handful of tables indoors this Friday.
“Our front of house team has expressed that they would like to open at this minimum capacity as they feel that the way our operation works (counter service) allows us to have safe interactions with customers while also being able to maintain proper distance between tables, open air with our garage door and active sanitation procedures to provide a safe environment to have a pint,” says general manager and co-owner Brendan Greenen, who notes the outdoor barrel tables will still be available.
Double Mountain Brewery & Cidery will open 25% indoors at both their Portland and Hood River locations.
NOT REOPENING YET
Wayfinder Beer, another brewery closed except for beer to-go since the freeze is not yet reopening. However is looking to do so in the near future. Stay tuned for a reopening date.
Great Notion Brewing will take a wait and see approach to reopening, and has no plans to do so yet. “We are going to monitor how it's going with other brewpubs / restaurants for a few weeks or so as well as COVID cases and the weather. We may open up around Spring Break time once temps rise a bit and we can take full advantage of our Alberta beer garden. Until then, we feel it's just not worth it health and comfort-wise.” They are still offering pick-ups, and delivery and shipping of their beers via the Great Notion App.
Ruse Brewing was one of a few breweries that chose not to reopen way back in June, but eventually did resume onsite service in October. With only 3 weeks pouring pints again, Ruse was closed along with everyone else for the winter freeze and has not reopened with any outdoor seating. Co-owner/brewer Shaun Kalis tells us that he is now taking a wait and see approach to trying again.
Assembly Brewing was just days away from celebrating their 1-year anniversary which would have been March 23rd, before the pandemic scuttled any hope of a party. For nearly a year now Assembly Brewing has remained closed for anything but take-out, and recently began canning their beers for the first time. Even with the pandemic stretching on longer than most of us could imagine, Assembly Brewing still won’t reopen their pub when they can only have 25% capacity. “We can only have 33 people including staff. With our overhead, we figured we could do more sales with the curbside than we can with a limited dining room. Doing both won’t work. So we’re going to wait for 100%” says brewer/co-owner George Johnson.
ABV Public House in Hillsboro, OR was doing to-go fills and selling their food for takeout but decided that wasnt viable in December. Without outdoor seating options they have remained as a pickup bottle shop only, and that doesnt look to be changing yet.
“it's just not viable to be open until we can utilize a large portion of our dining room space safely and confidently, not to mention getting our team access to the vaccine,” says ABV bar manager Lynn Meeuwsen. “The bottle shop and our sister business MainBrew are doing well, which will allow us to have a sturdy foundation when we do open back up fully.”
Apex was one of the first bars to close due to the pandemic, closing down completely before the shutdown was even announced. Since then they had reopened their spacious outdoor space and is opting to keep it that way.