The Standard is One of Portland’s Last True Neighborhood Bars

More than any other bar I know in Portland, it is a sodden vision of an ideal society.

(Julie Showers)
By Matthew Korfhage

14 NE 22nd Ave., 503-233-4181. 3 pm-2:30 am daily. Happy hour 3-6 pm daily: $1 off wells and drafts. Daily drink specials include $3 crafts Sunday, $1 Hamm's pints Wednesday.

Established: October 2007

The Standard is, on the one hand, a grab bag of simple amusements: $1 Jell-O shots topped with a neutron bomb's worth of Pop Rocks, the city's best alcoholic slushies in a cornucopia of flavors, long-table shuffleboard, a Hamm's bear in a Blazer jersey, a vending machine that might sell both condoms and a trans Barbie, and a better craft beer selection than you have any right to expect at a bar that serves $3 pints on Sunday. But the thing that made me treat this bar as an extension of my living room for seven years, what makes it different from every other bar with cheap drinks and a pool table and a covered patio in winter, is the simple decency of the place. The Standard is one of Portland's last true neighborhood bars, a ramshackle version of Penny Lane decorated in shattered CDs and corrugated metal. A regular who forgot her card might be allowed to run a tab, and the patrons three seats down probably know your name, but a drunk with a mean mouth is out on his tailbone. More than any other bar I know in Portland, it is a sodden vision of an ideal society.

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