NEWS BRIAN BURK
NO DIRECTION HOME: Customers sit along Southeast Division Street at North Bar.
WINDOW SHOPPING: Suey Tagama (left) and Mel Gonzales serve chicken sandwiches to go at Reel M Inn Tavern. The bar is still only open for takeout.
The Reopening Diaries Portland’s pent-up energy pours back into the bars, at least until 9:30 pm.
BY WW STA F F
503-243-2122
Each night for the past three weeks, the primary action in downtown Portland was protesters pressing against a chain-link fence surrounding the Multnomah County Justice Center. But on June 21, just 11 blocks north, a new phenomenon: half-naked go-go dancers. Two nights after Gov. Kate Brown allowed some businesses in Multnomah County to reopen, rock club Dante’s held its first paid event in three months: Sinferno Cabaret, the weekly burlesque show it has hosted for two decades. As lingerie-clad dancers undulated onstage to songs that included a remix of Childish Gambino’s “This is America,” about two dozen patrons watched from seats spaced six feet apart, with the exception of one man who was more interested in the video poker machines. Before entering the venue, each attendee submitted to a temperature check at the door. None wore masks. The MC encouraged the audience to tip the dancers, as each one would donate their earnings to different causes, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Urban League. “It’s really easy to get people excited about tits and ass,” says dancer Mystic O’Reilley. “It’s a lot harder to get people excited about civil rights.” For the past 12 weeks, Portlanders have waited for the go-ahead signal to reemerge from lockdown, watching with envy and fear as every Oregon county but Multnomah was approved to reopen by the governor. The wait was extended an additional week after Oregon’s most populous county experienced an alarming rise in COVID-19 cases. On June 17, Gov. Brown allowed Multnomah County to resume drinking and dining together, even though the rise in cases showed no signs of slowing (see page 10). Three months is enough time to reverse habits, and 7,000 cases is a lot of sickness. That made once-common sights appear uncanny, almost sinister. Burlesque dancers, once a staple of Old Town, felt as alien as barber shops, tat8
Willamette Week JUNE 24, 2020 wweek.com
too parlors and ordering a shot at Kelly’s Olympian. As with the rest of the state, Portland opened unevenly, with the action concentrated in the businesses eager—or desperate—to serve customers. Many Portland blocks saw little difference: Civic mainstays from Reel M Inn to the Zipper stuck to takeout service. In other places, especially on the westside, the 10 pm bar curfew only seemed to intensify the activity, packing it into a smaller window of time. Our reporters wandered into several corners of the city, seeing how Portland residents took their first steps back into old customs—some more enthusiastically than others. Here’s what we observed.
Nob Hill 9 pm Friday, June 19
By 8 pm, Scott Edwards and Sam Kazmer were officially starving. The two friends had put their names on the list at Bantam Tavern, the neighborhood bar now using the parking lot it shares with Indian restaurant Swagat as an outdoor dining area. Its eight picnic tables were full, as was the bar’s snug indoor seating—two booths, a third out of commission to provide proper spacing, plus two counters. An hour wait. “So we were like, ‘All right, let’s walk down the street and get a snack,’” says Edwards, a 31-year-old Nike employee. The pair managed to get seated outside at McMenamins Blue Moon. But after 15 minutes, no server emerged to take their order. So Edwards and Kazmer decamped to Top Burmese, where they had the tiny dining room all to themselves and ordered samosas to tide them over. It was a similar scene up and down Northwest 21st Avenue. At SanSai Japanese Grill, a single solo diner sat indoors, with two parties at outdoor tables. A few blocks away, Schmizza Pub and Grub was back to offering karaoke—against Gov. Brown’s orders. A smattering of custom-
ers looked on as a woman belted out Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” from behind a powder-blue mask. Edwards and Kazmer had returned to Bantam Tavern, hoping to finally get a seat and a full meal. The bar was no longer taking names for the wait list—per the rules of Phase 1, closing time was only an hour away. But for Edwards, at least, the hassle beat cooking at home for the umpteenth time in a row.“I’m still a little cautious, but I’ve been getting restless for sure,” he says. And he’ll certainly be eating out again—“if we don’t reclose, which feels like a possibility,” he adds. JASON COHEN.
Kerns 2:30 pm Saturday, June 20
Todd Hammer could barely keep up. “Everyone wants in,” said the hairstylist at Holiday Hair Studio in Kerns. “This is a crazy day for me. I started at 8 am and I probably won’t finish until 8:30 tonight. It’s nonstop.” It was Hammer’s first day back on the job in three months, and he had eight back-to-back appointments. As each client left his chair, Hammer took the barber cape tied around their necks and threw it in the nearby washing machine. While the capes soaked, Hammer cleaned each of his tools with more precision than he was taught at cosmetology school. But the laundry wasn’t fast enough to keep up with the stream of customers. So he jumped on Amazon Prime and ordered a dozen more capes. In his chair was Linda, wearing a bubblegum-pink mask and over 100 foils in her blond hair. She drove in from Vancouver, and hadn’t had her hair done since December. “Todd has never seen my hair this dark,” she said, motioning to her roots wrapped in aluminum. “I was very, very happy they reopened. I was desperate.” Four blocks north, at Bishops Barbershop, Lane Barrington felt the same about his hair. “It’s the longest it’s
