I KEEP MAKING EXCUSES for Bible Club. Whenever I bring up the new cocktail bar, I feel obligated to say, “It’s speakeasy-themed—but not a speakeasy.” Yet my arguments are weak against the evidence: The bar is in an old house (actually, it was once a coffee roaster), it has no sign (except for one that says, “No Minors”), and the interior is filled with Prohibition-era paraphernalia.
Despite its unadorned facade on SE 16th, just barely off Westmoreland’s main drag, Bible Club is one of the most aggressively beautiful bars in Portland. It’s just so full of stuff. It demands to be slowly explored, visually and tactilely. Virtually everything in the bar—from the tools the bartenders use, to the glassware patrons drink from—is American made pre-1930.
