Pub Crawl: Journeys Part 1, opening day
So, it turns out that when I said I’d be going up to Journeys LATE on Friday, what I meant what that I’d be getting there right about 5PM. So the weather was so incredible yesterday that all of us at my office decided we pretty much needed to close at 4PM and get out of there. So I found myself home a little before 5. Like any good long-time Oregonian faced with the first warm day of the year (note, this can mean any day above 50 degrees), I popped home and tossed on a pair of shorts, a “Hawaiian” shirt and headed up the hill to Journeys. Yeah, I know I said I’d go up there later - but the family’s plan kept changing up until the last minute so I had to fit a beer in early.
Journeys is small. This makes it the kind of place that is going to encourage you to converse with your fellow bar goers, since it’s certainly an intimate experience and it will get full fast. There’s two rooms - the front room with the bar and seating for 6-8 people at small tables, and then a small back room which is the sort of place I prefer to hang out and hold court. This back room was filled with bright sunlight on this day, and I’ll have to pop back there after dark to see what it feels like at night. This room will eventually be filled with travel guidebooks for the perusal of the guests. I’m looking forward to this. Here’s a crappy camera phone picture of the back room:
I’ll have to pop in with a real camera and take some picks of the main bar which is nice. They have all kinds of foreign coins embedded in the tile surface of the bar (who knew that Aruba had square coins?) and after a few of the other early stoppers-in took off, I relocated from the back to the corner bar-chair, which may become a favorite haunt since it allows for good people-watching, conversation surfing and a birds-eye view of traffic passing by on Capitol. I was talking to Bob, the co-owner about the “lawn chair service” that they had going on yesterday and how it’d be a good idea to install stadium lawn chair seating for the Multnomah Days parade. That’d be a great place from which to watch the parade - we’ll see if he goes through with it - of so, save me a seat!At some point I fell into a conversation with the people next to me, who recently moved to Portland from Denver. She is an ex-dentist and asked me if I lived in the neighborhood. I said yeah, I’ve been here a while, I like it, in fact I write a website focused on this area. At which point the ex-dentist (whose name is Kristin, but I have no idea how she spells it, and I’m somewhat fascinated by the idea of someone being a young ex-dentist, can you tell?) so anyway she exclaims, “You mean you’re The Villager?!” I said yeah, I’m the guy, and Kristin says, “Your website is one of the reasons we moved to this neighborhood!”. Cool!And it gets more amusing than that - since she’s from a little town called Sudbury Mass, which no one has heard of unless they, like me used to hang out at Victory Cigar on Boston Post Road in Sudbury when I was in Boston on such a regular basis that I became a regular there.
And it’s conversational moments like that, that are going to make Journeys a cool place to hang out.
4PM-11PM. Closed Tuesdays.
March 17th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
I’ve seen Journeys remodeling in the village for a while now. I was wondering what it’d be and whether it’d be something I’d like. I tried it just a half hour ago on 3/17/07 and it turns out to be a really fun little place.
Villager was right, you do end up talking to your barmates and in my case they already knew me from seeing me in the neighborhood with my poodles. At the Villager’s recomendation I used the corner bar stool and I had a great view of the traffic in the Village. I saw my neighbor getting Tai food!
The place is very accomidating and they can look full without really being full. I sat down at the last available stool and by the time I finished a beer I almost had the place to myself. By the second beer it was full again! They only hold around 25 people so while they may look crowded the turnover is quick enough to wait for. I’ve been looking for a non-smoking, casual place within walking distance to have a beer and it looks like Journeys may fit the bill.
March 18th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
It’s great to see the new businesses opening in MV - nice changes. Big welcome to all of them!
Another new business is moving into the former G/M Galleries place. The woman at Sweets, etc said it will be a womens clothing store selling locally made clothes. The clothes and jewelry in the window are by Frocky Jack Morgan (designer Julia Barbee’s company) which are also sold at Seaplane on NW 23rd and dragonlily on SE Hawthorne.
Also, City surveyors were at Gabriel Park earlier this week surveying for the new skatepark. It will be fun to watch that being built.
And I agree with Kristin - this blog is great. Thank you very much for doing it!
March 18th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Thank you very much for commenting - and being a regular tipster re: the new business action around the place. That’s interesting about the G/M space. wow, we’re certainly going to have a full selection of clothing options, unless of course, you’re a guy.
March 18th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Went to Journeys second time today. We were there on Friday night and this evening(Sunday). Not as crazy as the opening night and we were able to talk to both Bob and Shannon. What a wonderful place! Talking to the owners and fellow bar neighbors are so much fun. I am sooooo glad to have a place like Journeys to have a glass of beer and/or wine to just to wind down.
By the way, Mr. Villager, you should introduce yourself as the Mr. Villager. I mentioned Bob that you have mentioned about Journesy in your blog and Bob was trying to recall all the people from the busy opening night. But Bob mentioned several people mentioned your blog.
March 20th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
I’ve stopped in twice now, including opening night, which was a hoot–so great to have a new place in the Village to hang out and talk wine, travel and life. Love the setting and vibe a lot here, plus the selection of fine beers and wines. Cheese plate was a knockout, too. May their front patio open soon–with weather permitting, of course!
April 4th, 2007 at 7:41 pm
I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to check if I made the blog! We enjoyed meeting you, Mr. Villager. Keep up the good work on your site. We continue to enjoy Journey’s and the new folks we meet each time we go. Hopefully we’ll run into you again soon. The Citizen Kane of Talking Pig Movies? I have some reading to do to catch up. Sounds intriguing…
March 12th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
[...] is, it’s ONLY been open a year? But indeed, this week is Journeys’ First Birthday. Seems like ages ago that I posted about my first visit there. I’ve been back a few times since. My love for Journeys is well known, so I won’t go [...]