Lloyd Center District, Portland, OR - The woke mind virus took its latest victim in Northeast: The NEW 715 Inn. Walking back on my lunch break1 I passed the NE Broadway and 7th institution. The lights were out. Blinds closed on all the windows. The outdoor seating, gone. All that’s left, two guys solemnly drinking Bud Heavies out of those metal bottles I thought they only sold at baseball games. It’s fitting that such a place would go out the way it did. Shrouded in mystery. No, Celebration of Life. No, Grand Closing. No, press. No, Go-Fund-Me to “Save the New 715!.” Just a couple buds drinking buds and a chalk drawn cock2 with the message, “OLCC Can Suck My Dick / Fuck Ptown communist motherfuckers.” A morning protest and remembrance sure to be washed out by an evening rain.
This bar was not one of those “dive bars” that actually serve good food, have $7 beers, and get put on local lists that immediately disqualify them from being a dive.3 It was the real deal. A real dump. The New 715 made up its own little reactionary small business corridor sharing a city block (and wall) with Cotton Cloud Futon, who in 2021 had their own Broadway Bike Lane controversy when they tried to stop the implementation of a new bike lane on 7th that would connect with the Blumenauer Bridge because they had a “loading zone” there.4
No, the New 715 Inn was a different breed entirely. They served cup-o-noodle ramen, those deep fried tacos you can buy at the Safeway deli up the block, and fish sticks. Beer was warm out of the tap somehow. Truly the stuff of myth.
When I first moved to Portland nine years ago, I wasn’t old enough to legally drink and was early to a Blowout show at Black Water Bar. It was pouring rain and I had just gotten off the streetcar with my friend looking for shelter. This fine establishment’s blue glow beckoned us like a Siren Song, only inside there weren’t any women, only 15 dudes splitting a variety pack bag of Cheetos and watching golf highlights. The rain came down even harder, the bus splashed us with rain, but the person I came with made the executive decision that we should not go in, “I heard this bar is the most likely spot to get roofied in Portland,” she said.
It was years later when I finally answered the New 715’s call and went inside. I was the 5th wheel going to a Blazer game with my friend and all her high school friends back in town for Christmas. Being the only non-native Portlander of the bunch I still managed to have a good time watching Dame and co. beat some team I can’t remember. I ate dip-n-dots, drank expensive beers, and listened to my friend reminisce on TP-ing boys. After the game someone suggested we keep the night going at Black Water Bar cause they were hungry and vegan. We got there just as they yelled out, “Last Call” and turned off the fryers. My friend quickly googled the nearest bar and fate intervened… I told them the reputation the New 715 Inn had that this old friend imparted on me years ago. The group seemed desperate, a little intrigued even. This could be the worst bar in the city. We got inside and things were not as I’d remembered it. The light wasn’t an ominous shady blue but rather the true dive lighting of bright white hospital lights. Boxes were laid out all over the room like the first month at a new apartment. There were only two guys inside playing video poker, paying us no mind. The bartender was scrolling Facebook on his phone before handing us a menu when we sat down.
UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT:
Tacos - 50 cents
Breakfast - $4.50
Gyros - Various Prices
Nobody ordered food. We had a fine time, even though everyone seemingly got annoyed at one of their friends when she humble bragged on-and-on about a date she went on with Brandon Wardell. I biked home a little drunk and never saw any of my new friends again.
So many questions are left in the wake of the New 715: When was it the OLD 715? Who was the New Management? Why did the OLCC finally shut it down? In the chalk-cock is the OLCC sucking its own dick like a Marilyn Manson ouroboros? Questions I think most of us will live with being left unanswered, too lazy to even ask.
Yet, somehow for years this dive persevered—attached to the carcass of the Lloyd Center. Where stores around it died and revived and died again, the New 715 managed to live on. Like a much stupider Hanukkah miracle. Or maybe more like a mushroom growing in tree rot, one that you aren’t sure if it's poisonous in that it will kill you or just poisonous in that it will give you terrible diarrhea. So raise your Bud Heavy high. Pour a little out. Old Portland didn’t die, this was just the New 715. Rest in Peace or in Piss, nobody really cares. But I’ll have to find a cheap drink elsewhere.
It’s Safeway deli chinese food day at the office. ½ General Tso, ½ Korean Beef, and Chow Mein for a HEAVY discount. Much of the same food that they offered at the New 715 Inn.
Chock???
Sorry and go fuck yourself Sandy Hut.
The loading zone would later be moved to NE Broadway in front of the New 715.