Saturday Night in the John (St. Johns)

It's about that time of the year that NLC made its annual pilgrimage to Oregon, and I can't think of a better place to spend a Saturday night than in the seedy little neighborhood of St. Johns. Not to be confused with the Vancouver St. Johns (where there is a needle found on every corner), this St. Johns is a quaint little area in North Portland that is famous for two things: The St. Johns Bridge and the murders at Cathedral Park. And while both of those things are exciting and fun to see, I feel the community itself gets overlooked by the bridge traffic passing through and doesn't get the love it deserves. That's why I propose a bar crawl. Since the excitement may be too much for you guys to handle, we'll limit this crawl to just three establishments, and in the spirit of NLC, we'll start off at the trendy places, and then progressively get divier and divier as the night rolls along.

From 7:00-9:00, the meetup kicks off at Storm Breaker Brewing on Lombard. It's an informal little brewpub, but it's a nice place with a good little food menu comprised of normal bar fare as well as some interesting items like the fried popcorn chicken poppers. But more importantly, they have a great drink menu complete with their flagship drinks like the Cloud Ripper IPA and seasonal brews like the Winter Coat Ale. They also have a wine and cocktail section for the hardcore alcoholics. They have something for everyone.

From 9:00-10:00, we'll all mosey down Lombard Street to our first dive bar/hole in the wall for the evening, The Fixin' Too! I've never been to this place, but I am interested to check it out. It's actually a barcade with 20 pinball machines, shoot-em-ups, and multi-player games. They have live music sometimes, and the standard dive bar drink menu complete with everything from IPAs to Budweiser (i.e. horse piss) and of course wines and cocktails for the hardcore alcoholics. Like most dive bars, they have a limited food menu, but apparently they have a pizza with goat cheese, which sounds interesting. I don't know. We'll pillage the shit out of this place for an hour before heading to our next place.

From 10:00-11:00, we'll head back up Lombard to our last stop of the evening: an even smaller hole in the wall called the Blue Bird Tavern. Nestled between a barber shop on one side and some vacant building on the other, this shotgun establishment has light two-tone blue paint that is peeling off, parking in the rear, its own alley, and a dumpster next to the rear entrance. They don't get no divier than this joint, I promise you! This place has it all, pool tables, video poker machines, a barber chair in the corner, and an occasional bar fight to keep us entertained. It has the standard drink and food menus that every dive bar has, but it's really all about the atmosphere. Let's take it all in and enjoy the moment before heading back to our normal lives.

So join us for a night of fun on Saturday, December 13th as we prowl the real St. Johns' Hood! Be there or else the Wolfman gonna getcha!!