Food Dude breaks the news that the Lutz Tavern will be closing its doors on September 30th. This website confirms the news.
I feel a huge pang of sadness for Ray Davis. Go buy him a beer, wont you? Don’t know him? I had the pleasure of speaking with him for our spring Food and Drink supplement:
There is a sign behind the bar at Lutz Tavern that reads “Stop and have a tall one with ray Davis” If you happen to be on the right stool, at the lovely sweeping curve of the bar, sometime before 4 pm, you may be able to take that sign up on its suggestion.
Yes, Ray Davis is a real person, with a real beer cozy for his Hamms with his name on it.
“They even put it in for me,” he says, as the bartender slips the beer into the red neoprene sleeve. “People like me here for some reason.”
He first came to the Lutz 25 years ago. It was the perfect place for him to have a drink and keep an eye on his Mercedes 250 SL through the windows. Also, it’s close to home.
The 78 year old Davis has watched as the second generation has taken over operations of the Tavern, and breathed a sigh of relief when the smoking ban came through—now he doesn’t have to change his clothes when he returns home to his wife of 39 years.
Retired when he was 51, Davis leads a life most of us may never get to have: A beer or two with friends at the Tavern, waving at girls through the windows in the summer, and home to the wife for a few games of cribbage.
“It’s a good life,” he says. It’s more than likely anyone who stopped and had a tall one with Ray Davis would agree. PAC
Farewell, Lutz tavern.
The Lutz used to be a Reed hangout every Thursday night. I don’t think I ever went there any other night. I’d say I’ll miss the hot pickles, but the Lutz hasn’t served them for a long time anyway.
I have not been to the Lutz since 17 Nautical Miles was still down the block from it.
The Lutz was a piece of worthwhile Olde Portlande. Along with the disappearance of the Tu-Be on Hawthorne, the pre-painted Space Room, The Commodore, and a dozen or so other places that have been eroded away with the coming of Now PDX: the infestation of the fact that you can’t throw a safe-to-throw “Bioprene” rock over your shoulder without hitting a yoga instructor, a graphic designer, and a bodyworker all at once. Sadly, you also won’t any longer have the chance to hit Miranda July. PDX hasn’t been weird in a long time. Now it’s more like Park Slope Far West.
On the other hand, PDX is neither as unbearable as Seattle nor as dreary as Olympia. And don’t talk to me about California. That shithole hasn’t been fit for human habitation in decades. And unfortunately, all the non-humans seem to have migrated north. The Last Next Best Place still exists though. And you’re not going to hear about it from me. And if you can’t build it, then stop coming to play on it after the work is done. If you’ve moved to PDX in the last ten years, claiming it as your own is like showing up to hang the petunias on a newly built house and then trying to take credit as the architect and builder.
@b!X
Thank you for that 17 Nautical Miles reference.
@PDX Pedant: Boise’s next.
Crap where will I wait for a table at Delta now ?
P.S. Ray’s wife died very recently, and my condolences go out to him. I poured beers at the Lutz in the late ’90’s and many of my contacts there continue to be my dear friends. It’s a loss, for sure.
Didn’t love all the ‘upgrades,’ but the Lutz was a classic for many Reedies back in the day. I was insulted by a tripping hipster, lauded by a tweeded professor, played chess with a woman I loved and . . . anyway. It was the Lutz.
I first entered Lutzs as it is properly called in l956 and spent the next seven or so years making it my home. Andy and Averil took me into their home on many occasions and I saw Lila when she was a newborn. I also talked with Bill Lutz many times and remembered the time when the tavern was situated one block west during the time of the second big war. It’s sad that my grandsons will not have Lutzs and Johnny’s Service Station to aid in their transition from being teenagers to young adults. I made it and look back without regret. May Lutzs look forward to a rebirth sometime in the future.