It's been a bleak time in the Portland beer scene, but today Brewpublic reported a bit of good news for lovers of Portland craft beer. Level Beer, the charming brewpub located in the Argay neighborhood in deep Northeast Portland, is opening a second location in Southwest Portland.

The Multnomah Village space was formerly home to O'Connor's, a long-standing neighborhood restaurant, bar, and live music venue that closed last year and was briefly replaced by a Mediterranean restaurant called Gastro Mania. It's now the Level Beer Multnomah Village Taproom, and is scheduled to open at the start of 2020. Brewpublic has full details and pictures of the new space. The historic building was the site of a bank in the 1940s and the space still retains a bank vault door.

According to Brewpublic, another portion of that former O'Connor's space will reportedly be home to Y'alla, a Mediterranean restaurant from the people who operate Shalom Y'All and Mediterranean Exploration Company, who are partnering with John Gorham's Toro Bravo group for this venture and will have a limited Y'alla menu available in the Level Beer taproom.

This expansion for one of the city's newer breweries is a welcome break from the glut of bad news that hit the Portland beer scene in the past couple of weeks. To recap: Lompoc Brewing and Coalition Brewing both announced they were shutting down, and the Portland outpost of the Rock Bottom brewpub chain abruptly shut its doors. The cider outlook is not so great either, with Cider Riot announcing it will close on November 10 (via the O) and Avid Cider already shut for good. However, in the case of Coalition, a new venture called Gorges Beer Co. will launch from that space, with former Lompoc brewer Bryan Keilty manning the mash tun, as reported by New School Beer.

Read our review from January 2018 of Level Beer's original video game-themed location out on Northeast 148th.