26 — McMenamins Barley Mill Pub

With 56 locations throughout Oregon and Washington and annual revenue in the range of $200M annually, we're willing to bet, if you're listening to this podcast, you've been to a freaking McMenamins! You know the vibe, you know the art, you know the history, and you know the consistent, if perhaps overly scrutinized, food, beer, and service.

Well, 40 years ago, nobody knew much of anything about Mike and Brian McMenamin's fist bar together, the Barley Mill Pub (1629 SE Hawthorne, Portland). It began as a chill, uncontroversial, infrequently visited public house when it opened in the summer of 1983 with few indications of the seismic shift in the region's bar and beer landscape it would soon help usher in. The humble Barley Mill was indeed the Pub that launched a thousand quirky boozy ships in the Northwest.

We visited on a beautiful day in SE Portland, did all the classic McMenamins things, and, eventually (once functional recording equipment arrived 48hrs later), recorded a rollicking stein-swinging conversation covering McMenamins unparalleled historic preservation efforts, a salute to the cajun tot, the polarizing Grateful Dead, and the glory of disco lit men's rooms.

Bar visit: Thursday, May 25, 2023

Recording date: Saturday, May 27, 2023

HBTG theme song: "Frozen Egg" by Lame Drivers

Interlude music: "Right Track" by Lame Drivers