Locale Bar Reopening in NW Portland

New home to Locale. Photo credit: Google Maps

It looks like Locale, described in the Willamette Week as a bar that is “modeled after the day-drinksy coffee bars of Europe” is reopening. They’ll be over in the NW side of town this time around, not returning to their old location on N. Mississippi, where they closed up shop in July 2018.

The new location is 1905 NW 23rd Avenue, which is the address for The Fitz, a new apartment building (as of 2021) offering “boutique luxury rental residences.” Before that was built, this location was “occupied by a 1950 warehouse and two 1905 residential structures,” according to Next Portland. In that article the address of the development was 1825 NW 23rd Avenue, but, as these things do, the address changed.

From what I can tell, Parker McNulty was the developer behind this building. He has been connected to Locale, though, for quite a bit longer than that, according to some of the business’s paperwork. Locale has applied for a Full On‐Premises, Commercial liquor license, so they will aim to have a full bar. And because this is Portland, no doubt food will be involved to some extent, and I’ll be curious to see what that is exactly.

There are three retail spaces on the ground floor of The Fitz. PDX Sliders occupies one, The Side Door at The Fitz is advertised as occupying another, so Locale would be in the third. I haven’t been over there, personally, so the specific location of each of the food & drink businesses is unclear to me.

Locale will have 35 seats, all indoors (at least for now). Hours are 11am to 2pm, so this is a lunchtime-to-nighttime sort of place. There will be music, but it will be recorded music on a sound system, not live music. There are four floors of apartments above the retail, so live music is something that’s a serious consideration when it comes to quality of life issues.

As to when they will open, that is an unknown at this moment in time. What I believe are Locale’s established social media accounts haven’t woken up, so it could be a while. But I think a lot of people will be happy to see them return eventually. I’ll keep an eye on things and see what else I can find out. Shoot me an email if you know anything.

Locale (opening soon?)
1905 NW 23rd Avenue, Portland