The arrival of listening bars—meticulously designed haunts built around the playing of vinyl records on high-end stereo equipment—in the Portland metro area was inevitable. A mainstay of Japanese musical culture since the ’50s (an estimated 600 audiophile cafés and bars are currently in operation there), the concept has been imported to the US over the past few years, with a recent arrival being Shibuya, a hotspot in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood that opened last fall.
It was around that same time that Sonder Listening Bar arrived in our neck of the woods. A similarly themed bar Decibel Sound & Drink has been operating in our area since 2019. Both are tucked into somewhat unexpected locales. Sonder can be found in a small Hollywood District strip mall between two resale clothing stores—a block away from the neighborhood’s namesake movie theater. Decibel, meanwhile, is wedged into a corner lot in Milwaukie, close to an Orange Line MAX Station, on the outskirts of the downtown core.
Both spots stick to the basics, plying denizens with craft cocktails and small bites while engulfing their bodies with music. The similarities end there.