Imperial Bottle Shop & Taproom Alberta closes March 19 after a 5 year run in NE Portland

For Alex Kurnellas, his story as a Portland taproom owner starts in July 2013, when Imperial Bottle Shop and Taproom on SE Division Street opened. The business model looks familiar: taproom with a varied selection on tap, plus coolers and shelves packed with an even wider variety of packaged beer for off-premises sale. Kurnellas and his then life partner (and more recently, wife) Shawn Stackpoole worked together and created a quality watering hole as that stretch of Division underwent gentrification, where shabby old single-family homes were replaced by blocks of condos and iconic Portland institutions like Salt and Straw and Bollywood Theater. Kurnellas also still worked his marketing day job while Stackpoole held down the fort.

Around 2017, Kurnellas was no longer working a day job, a business loan had been paid off, and the notion of two people running the single bar seemed insufficient work, so the idea was born to open a second Imperial, this time in a similarly burgeoning NE Alberta Street neighborhood. Imperial Alberta opened in August 2017, allowing Kurnellas and Stackpoole the opportunity to run two beer bars and bottle shops simultaneously. The ramp-up was slow at Alberta, but Division was ticking along nicely, and expectations were high for two thriving businesses, expanding the brand and serving two popular neighborhoods.

Trouble, though, was waiting in the wings. It started with Stackpoole suffering an attack of shingles, then still getting sick on and off, until an April 2018 life-altering case of cancer was diagnosed. The treatments were profound, and Stackpoole was no longer able to continue in her role running Imperial Division. Kurnellas found himself in multiple stress-filled roles, trying to run two businesses while also acting as a caregiver as Stackpoole slowly recovered, eventually changing their roles from life partners to married couple in 2019.

As time rolled on, things didn't get easier. "You might remember, craft beer was already on a downswing in 2019," Kurnellas remembered, and the market was already fragmenting as well. Still, the two Imperial beer bars stayed open, and then came March of 2020, the covid pandemic, and the lockdowns, exacerbating what was already a stressful situation. The two bars operated with a minimal number of employees, so subsequent Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) payouts were too small to even cover lease payments. The Alberta landlord wasn't into cooperating for renters' assistance, exacerbating a situation of paying monthly rents even while closed. Yes, a parklet went up, and yes, the "Glühbar" idea of serving warmed mulled drinks (beer, wine, and cider) worked pretty well and helped cover costs, and Stackpoole had recovered sufficiently to be at work again, but even with 2021 and vaccinations in place and a hoped-for business revival, the delta and omicron surges added limitations once again. Add in natural disasters like the smoky skies from the forest fires and a few days of icy conditions shutting down the city. Mix with fierce competition and significant changes in habits; customers no longer casually dropped in to more than one place to linger, like having a pre- or post-dinner drink (Imperial was not necessarily conceived as a destination bar), and Imperial's licensing as non-food premises wasn't family-friendly. To-go and bottle shop sales filled in some of the gap, but conditions were still difficult, and it seemed like the battle against stiff headwinds was never-ending.

In November 2021, the Alberta lease came up for renewal, and Kurnellas had his reply ready: "No," setting Imperial Albert's closing day on March 19th, 2022. Kurnellas and Stackpoole will devote their business focus to their Division store for the time being, and Stackpoole's welcome return to health and ability to work the business will allow Kurnellas to put more effort into marketing functions like beer buying and social media. In what everyone hopes is a late and waning stage of the pandemic, Kurnellas opines, "I hope Division will thrive." Kurnellas might be working on new business ideas as well, musing "I'm thinking of opening a strip bar serving fried chicken sticks. I'll call it Chick Stix!" Don't expect that to happen any time soon if ever, but given how things have gone in the last few years, don't be surprised if it happens anyway.