beakerandflask.com Blog

Like the spring breakup of the ice that jams the Moskva River, it appears as though the long wait is over and the buildout of Beaker & Flask is seemingly set to begin flowing. It was not an easy thing to do, keep patient, while my entire future rested in someone else’s hands. I considered, long and hard, the possibility that maybe I needed to find a new space, one that was a little more “pre-packaged” and ready to go. In the end, though, I just could not see opening B & F anywhere else. When I first started looking for locations, way back when, I got out a map and created a ground zero spot, the ideal location, and then started looking for buildings in the surrounding area. As it turned out, 720 SE Sandy was about 35 feet away from ground zero. I’ve become even more convinced in the past year that my choice was proper and a few others have come to agree with me.

In other news: Because a boy and his dog cannot survive on intermittent staff meal and smiles from strangers, I have taken a new job as bar manager of Clyde Common. As you may recall, I was spending a small amount of time behind the bar of Nate Tilden’s year old restaurant (located in the Ace Hotel!) and the opportunity arose with the departure of the great Charlie Hodge. Charlie really created a fantastic and highly successful bar so it’s going to be a pretty smooth transition, albeit not without a few subtle changes. I will be bringing in and trying out some of my ideas that will eventually make their way over to Beaker & Flask. So if you want a sneak preview, or you are just wondering “who is this guy with the camera and the imaginary bar?”, wait a week or so and then come for a visit. I’m really looking forward to seeing what I can do with the place and I’m overwhelmingly grateful to Nate for giving me the chance. To quote the venerable Mike Watt: “Hope I don’t f**k it up, Gibby.”

I’m debuting a new segment here that I’m calling “where you at?” It’s where I’ll give the updates on the progress of Beaker & Flask and the timeline for opening day.
As I’ve already stated, Beaker & Flask is located at 720 SE Sandy Blvd. It’s a great old building and I’ll be occupying about 1900 sq. ft. of the 5100 sq. ft. available. The entire building was occupied by Krueger’s for a good long time until they sold to the new owners last December. As I expected, it’s somewhat of a process to remodel the space into three separate units, but progress is being made and, at this point, I’m still hoping for a June opening date. I’ll keep that until June comes and goes, at which point I’ll update.

I’ve been working with a great local architect, by the name of Mark Annen, who has years of experience designing restaurants and he’s been a great help in taking my ideas and putting them on paper in a way that will actually be functional and make the best use of the space available. Mark also did the design work for Park Kitchen, , Rocket, Country Cat and some other great spots around Portland. I think he was the right man for the job. Below is a basic drawing of what the layout will look like.

The rounded front is the curved windows that you can see in the above picture. The view from there overlooks the large intersection where Sandy Blvd. becomes 7th Ave., with the West Hills and a modest view of the Downtown skyline forming the background. It should have a nice active, urban feel. Inside it will feature mostly booths for the floor seating and that big triangle will be a, sort of, three petal flower shaped pub table. The kitchen will be open, but I like that it’s in the back and behind the bar so the bright lights won’t dominate the environment.

I’ll put some more pictures below to show the current state of things and then we can all have fun watching the work get done, because it will happen, right?