Neighborhood:
Montavilla Montavilla is where old hipsters go to die. When guitarists and disco punks want to settle down in houses with yards, they do it here, in the eastern shadow of Mount Tabor hunkered against the hookers and big boxes (and hookers with big boxes) of Southeast 82nd Avenue. (read more) This hipster Valhalla finds a flesh-and-stone metaphor in the Milepost 5 live-work condos (900 NE 81st Ave., 998-4878): With controlled prices aimed to keep artists from starving, it’s fittingly situated in a converted retirement home. The real heart of the neighborhood, though, is a confused little stretch along Southeast Stark Street that looks like a small-town main drag. There, the über-family-friendly Academy Theater (7818 SE Stark St., 252-0500)—dude, babysitting!—fine dining, and a warehouse of reconstituted forest products (Mr. Plywood, 7609 SE Stark St., 254-7387) knock uglies with chicken-wing dives, pool halls, and Roscoe’s (8105 SE Stark St., 255-0049), a tight-pantsed, dirty-minded jukejoint with a killer foosball table where, I swear to you, I once saw two women having sex on the bar. —Matt Korfhage
