Louie on Lombard: Opening in the Old Garrison Bar Space

A new neighborhood cocktail bar called Louie is going to open in the St. Johns neighborhood. It will take over the space that used to be home to The Garrison, a popular bar that closed earlier this year. The location is in the heart of the North Lombard business strip, residing among a number of other bars and restaurants.

Jesse Morrow of Old Friend, the team behind Company Bar on SE Belmont and Collector in Kerns, is the force behind Louie. We spoke with him last month about the new bar—here is what we learned.

What Happened to The Garrison

There’s a good amount of chatter on the internets speculating about what happened to The Garrison. It closed sometime in March 2026. Jesse said, “I don’t know exactly what went down except for that they basically just walked away.”

He also said that when he walked into the bar, the place felt a bit like a ghost town. “They were set up for business—they were set up to reopen and never did,” he remarked. “It was a pretty strange environment to walk into, but in this transformation we’re making the most of it.”

He added, “The Garrison was a great bar that filled a real niche in St. Johns, and we want to carry that forward,” he said. “Lombard already has some of the best dive bars in the city, and they do their job well. Louie adds one more option: A good cocktail close to home without driving across town. Good drinks, warm lighting, no lecture.”

Louie: What’s in a Name?

Jesse has named the bar after a family member—his nephew. “Louie is my nephew’s name,” Jesse explained. “He has nothing to do with the bar but I really like the name. And I think that it’s familiar.”

He continued, “Once I started thinking about a name, I put it on the list of possible business names. After talking with people, they’d tell me, ‘Oh, my dog’s name is Louie!’ or “My grandpa was Louie!’ And I realized it was just this very familiar, friendly name.”

He added, “It’s fun to say … and I guess maybe I don’t get to say it enough because I don’t live with my nephew; I thought it’d be very sweet. So it kind of stuck.”

Working on Louie, the Bar

Good news for Jessie is that, of course the core components of an actual bar are already in place. But they are essentially redoing everything else in the room, some of it with DIY finesse.

There’s about 30 seats in the 700 square foot room. Plus, there’s a patio with a handful of picnic tables and a fire pit.

Jesse’s Past [Adjacent] Food Experience

Jesse has what they call “a dotted line” to food—he hasn’t worked directly in the industry but did help Collector and Company Bar get off the ground through is design firm Old Friend, which he runs with his partner Elliot Snyder. “We’re always hospitality adjacent,” he remarked.

Their other projects include Bialy Bird, 24th Pizza and Meatballs, as well as Montelupo. “We did some of their interior, little add-ons,” he explained. “We didn’t build out the space or anything, but did all the branding for Montelupo—I guess that’s our most notable project.”

Adam Berger, who started Montelupo, also owned 24th Pizza and Meatballs in The Ocean’ this corner space is now home to Collector Bar. “We got to be close in with them,” said Jesse. “Those guys own 24th of Meatballs, which is where Collector is now. Originally it started out as, ‘Hey, we’re going to work with you to convert this space to a bar.’ 
And then those guys had the Focacceria [in Sellwood] coming up and got super busy, and just handed the space over. And so we kind of took that on as our own project.”

In their work as Old Friend, they truly enjoy handling the marketing and branding side of things. But Jesse has has had an interest in the interior design side, too. “Getting to do that with Company and Collector was super fulfilling—it’s a very gratifying creative process for me.”

At one point, Elliot moved out to White Salmon, just across the Columbia from Hood River, and that gave Jesse the chance to work on Louie on his own. “This opportunity with Louie—The Garrison space—came along, and I wanted to take it on and see how I did solo. I got plenty of help—my fiancee helps, and we got a good manager lined up for the space, and so she’s been in there getting stuff going.”

Louie Brings Bar Diversity to Lombard

I wondered if they were aiming to be another dive bar, so I asked about that. “No, it’ll be separate from a dive bar,” he explained. “So right on that street, there’s a bunch of dive bars. 
There’s Slims, Bluebird, Marie’s. And there’s certainly bars that are appealing to a different market or a different time of day than we will be.”

He continued, “So this will be more updated than those spaces. I think that we are aiming for more of a date night spot. It’ll definitely still be a good place to come hang with your buds, but we want to bring in more two tops and make it a little more functional and intimate than maybe some of those other spaces are.”

The Interior

He says the interior will look very similar to Company—a “feather finish” kind of concrete look on the walls, dim lighting, with exposed wood beams on the ceiling. “So you get some warmth from there,” said Jesse. “We’re bringing in some booth seating, so we’ll have some nice, warm camel leather color going on in there. We want these worn-in feel textures.”

And implementing reuse is important to him. “Anything that I can get, including these booths, came from the Rebuilding Center,” he said. This is the amazing resource on North Mississippi Avenue—if you haven’t been by, you should, as it has a pretty cool exterior decor going on. Plus all the great resources inside.

His dedication to reuse also includes reusing items he found left behind after The Garrison departed. “I’m reusing everything that I can from the space,” he said. “There was a big shelving setup that we moved. If you look up old pictures of the Garrison, the front of the bar in the back had all this burnt cedar kind of look. And so I reused all of those pieces to re-cover the front of the bar and do some wainscoting in the bathroom. We stained them all black, so that’s going to be a different look.”

He added, “But yeah, I’m just trying to reuse any components that we can and make little design tweaks when there’s nothing that we can reuse. And I think reuse helps encourage that [comfortable look] rather than a sort of stoic look. Each has its place, though.”

Cocktails at Louie

The cocktail menu is still under development, but it’s safe to say that they will have some classic cocktails and creations of their own. “We’re trying to bring in some fresh citrus to our cocktails and such,” remarked Jesse. “The closest similarity will be the Collector program, where we just have solid takes on classic cocktails and fresh ingredients.”

At Louie, they be looking at classics like the Daiquiri, Old Fashioned, and Manhattan to put their own twist on these giants of the cocktail world—though with the Martini he does not plan to deviate too much. But they’ll collect various ingredients to make the drinks their own.

And they are looking at offering half pours—like a teeny martini—and what I affectionally call “tiny beers”—beer in small cans. Lil Buddy Lager is the product they also offer at Collector, and that will make its way to Louie. “People just love a little little tiny something!” exclaimed Jesse.

The NA Side of Louie

As far as NA options, for some they will borrow from Collector. “We always like to have at least a couple house NA cocktails, and then the premade drinks where we could use an NA spirit with a spritz kind of set up,” Jesse explained, “And I think, just depending on demand, that can grow.”

Good news: They like working with The Pathfinder for many of their NA cocktails. They also like what I am seeing more and more of in the NA sphere, which is less overly sweet and more pleasantly bitter and/or sour.

“We also love La Maison Tea Royale,” he said. “I don’t know if you’ve had that, but it’s a kind of NA tea, but it looks like it’s in a champagne bottle. It’s lightly sparkling and just delicious.” Coincidentally I had it at Bar Nouveau (La Maison T Royale Blooming Rose) during their one-year anniversary celebration earlier this year and loved it.

At some point in the future, he’d like to entertain the idea of introducing coffee service in the morning, but that would be a ways off.

Food

They are using the menu at Collector as an inspiration for the menu at Louie—part of that plan is to lean in towards high quality bar snacks. “We’ll be doing tinned fish plates like we do at Collector,” said Jessie. “And, seeing how it goes, we’ll probably have some kind of dip, as well with either bread or chips.” 


Guests can also take advantage of the menu at Mikasa, and order their food to go with the drinks at Louie. There is a third space in the trio of businesses that share the patio, and Jesse hopes something great opens up in there.

Wishing Jesse all the best as he gets Louie up and off the ground there in St Johns.

Louie [projected opening mid-November 2026]
8773 N Lombard Street, Portland
Louie website | Instagram