Hawthorne Strip, Reviewed

NOT A TOFFEE BAR FOR SOCCER PEOPLE: Joining the illustrious ranks of Apizza Scholls and Belmont Station, Hawthorne Strip (3532 SE Powell Blvd., 232-9516, hawthornestrip.com) on Powell Boulevard, next to the Scottish Country Shop and Rose City Strip, carries its historic name to a new location where it becomes delightful nonsense.

It's now a red-lit box of a space three times as large as the famously "intimate" original, with a new-looking pool table and spacious stage. According to a dreadlocked weed-shop employee who was having a hard time keeping his eyes open, the Strip is "way classier" than Glimmers—the strip club that preceded it, which hosted a shooting in its parking lot in 2012.

And it's almost guaranteed to be classier than Tommy's before that, whose former owner was fatally shot at sequel Tommy's Too on Foster Road in 2014 while under federal investigation. But on the Hawthorne Strip's brand-new rear smoking porch, one of the dancers—whose musical taste favors Eartha Kitt and Sarah Vaughan—declared the patrons more respectful than at other clubs, although there were very few on this particular Thursday night. Perhaps the conflict between the name/address had confused them, we wondered aloud. "I might change it someday," says the owner behind the bar, laughing. He shouldn't. Portland bar history is thin enough as it is.

"They're putting in some kind of toffee bar at the old spot," the owner says, "for soccer people." From the tone of his voice and the football on the TV behind the bar, it is very clear he is not soccer people. And the Hawthorne Strip is a perfectly friendly little strip bar, with eight taps of beer and no toffee whatsoever, unless it's somebody's name.

Willamette Week