Entrance to The Lift Off Lounge
Since I moved to Sumner, I find myself driving the strip of NE Sandy south to the Hollywood District fairly often, and have been really curious about what’s going into the old Stanley Printing building. After all, there is a very visually-appealing neon martini glass sign hung outside the building. I did some digging (and legwork) and found that something called The Lift Off Lounge is moving into that ground floor space, and a familiar name is behind it, according to city paperwork: Casey Maxwell, owner of the late Matador, a West Burnside bar that was open for decades and closed in 2014.
The Lift Off Lounge will be located at 5216 NE Sandy Blvd, a building built in 1912 that has been totally renovated. City permits reveal the work that had been planned for the building: new restaurant and office space, seismic upgrades to current code, new exterior windows, structural work in the basement, new walls all around, ADA upgrades, electrical and plumbing work. Converting from a print shop to a lounge is no small feat
Justice for Janitors, LLC owns the property and it’s set up for two separate tenants to lease space from them. Upstairs will be offices, which, according to the submitted plans, also include a reception area, storage, a conference room bathrooms and a shower (nice).
The restaurant/bar/lounge area is essentially triangular in shape (there are a lot of those “Flatiron” shaped properties all up and down Sandy), with a dedicated lounge area on the western tip, additional lounge space along the Sandy Blvd side, a bar about in the middle, and the kitchen in the corner against NE Sacarmento.
Outside, there are decorative segments advertising “Jukebox,” “Cold Beer,” “Cocktails,” and “Good Food,” all in a kind of Art Deco font. Plus the aforementioned neon martini glass.
I looked inside the window through the tears in the plastic, and some of the interior is done but they do have some work to do.
This could be a very nice addition to a great retail and food strip on this section of Sandy. Behind The Lift Off Lounge on NE Sacramento is Hogan’s Goat (recently under new ownership) and Cabezon; nearby on Sandy is Case Study Coffee, Bakeshop, Buddha Chocolate, Du’s Grill, Laurelwood Pub, the Rose City Food Park, among others.
The Lift Off Lounge has no social media presence yet, but I expect that will all fall into place soon. Best of luck to Casey Maxwell and the crew working on opening up this place!
The Lift Off Lounge
5216 NE Sandy Blvd, Portland
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