O'Dear Bar & Grill Will Open in Parkrose in September

After years of preparation and work, O’Dear, a new bar/lounge & grill, will open in Parkrose. It’s right there on NE Sandy near the monthly Parkrose Marketplace. Look for the grand opening on Thursday, September 8, 2022.

Vince Culp is the force behind O’Dear, and has been involved with a couple of other bars over the years: Whiskey Tango in Hood River and 2nd Street Bar in Gresham. He has been working hard to get O’Dear up and running and open to the public. His goal is to provide a fun place to hang out for a broad range of patrons—you can read about his original vision in this Mid-County Memo article from 2018, but I suspect the current vibe he’s hoping for will be similar to then. Expect good food and drink, dancing, live music (Friday and Saturday nights), karaoke, and a pool table.

O’Dear is not going to be a dive bar; there are plenty of those in east Portland. It’s also not going to resemble its predecessor, Gilhooligans Bar & Grill, which got a pretty intense thrashing in reviews online by the end of its life. Instead it’s going to be an energetic space where patrons can have a good time together; in fact, the Mid-County Memo went so far as to call it a “hipster bar” (I would disagree with that). Back in 2019 he received $50K in grants from Historic Parkrose, which he used to renovate the bar’s exterior, add new signage (you can see it easily on the south side of Sandy Blvd), and at that point the plan was to install a garage door so that seating would be indoor while welcoming in the outdoors.

There will be times of the day when O’Dear is family-friendly. While they plan to be open 7 days a week, noon to 1am, family dining will available until 8pm everyday. You’ll find 12 seats in the lounge area, and over a hundred in the rest of the space. No outdoor seating is planned. There is off-street parking available.

I’ve reached out to Vince to see what other details he could provide, and will post them to the blog when I have them.

This is going to be a great addition to Parkrose—and is part of the gradual changes happening to that chunk fo the neighborhood, the Historic Parkrose section. O’Dear is up the street from Grocery Outlet and Parkrose Hardware; it’s near El Sombrero, a popular Mexican restaurant in the area, as well as the gem that is the Filipino restaurant Fork & Spoon. I do think this part of town is on an upward trajectory and it will be interesting to see what other changes come to the neighborhood.

Best of luck Vince and crew as you prepare O’Dear to open its doors after years of hard work.

O’Dear Bar & Grill [opening September 8, 2022]
10810 NE Sandy Blvd, Portland
odearbar.com | Instagram | Facebook

This post was updated on 8/25/22.