Episode 3 - Part 2: Wanker's Corner Saloon vs. Corner Saloon (March 15, 2018)
This is part two of the story of the Wankers Corner Saloon...which originally started serving cold ones in 1933 in the Tualatin/Lake Oswego borderlands...before turning into a sorta cheesy-rowdy faux Australian Spuds MacKenzie '80s party bar...then moving lock, stock, and barrel to a generic Wilsonville commercial building in 1997...clearing the way for Corner Saloon (NOT faux Australian, but owned by a Brit and serves giant Fosters Oil Cans) to fill the void back in the original location...two establishments with a perplexingly intertwined history and no love lost for each other...we spent an afternoon in March trying to unravel it all.
Established: 1933 (this one is legit)
Wanker's Corner Saloon | Tualatin/Lake Oswego Borderlands
Established: 1933 (this one is legit)
First Drinks: Pair of Fosters "Oil Cans" for Nate n' Alfredo (because it's NOT an Australian bar, understand?)
Interesting Food: none noted
Men's Room: 4/5 urinal pucks...no doorknob, dirty urinal, dual rotating cloth towel drying system...'80s yuppy poster in the stall...a STRONG effort.
Musings:
So after the brief trip to party animal Valhalla in commercial Wilsonville (where the old Wanker's had set up shop to become new again), we returned to the geographical Wanker's Corner (first pronounced VAHN-kers to reflect the Germanic founding family name) where the new Corner Saloon had been established in the spirit of the original bar (even though the original name had been taken to Wilsonville). Considering all of this was exhausting, but we soldiered on.
Corner Saloon has the right feel of a place that's approaching its 100th birthday. The building is venerable and cozy, and while there's bric-a-brac covering every inch of this place too, it somehow feels different and more authentic. Maybe it was the extremely lo-fi projection screens and tube TVs that warmed our heart...or the Extraordinary Measures poster prominently displayed (a scene from the Brendan Fraser/Harrison Ford film shot in the bar...check the 0:27 mark of the trailer) next to the classic Neil Lomax poster (go Portland State Vikings!)...or those giant Oil Cans warming our livers...but we loved this place.
Our visit wasn't without incident though. For the first time in our tour, a suspicious owner confronted us about our incessant bar gazing, note taking, photography, and, the real deal breaker, our bizarre drink order! Simon, the owner and a British expat, came over from his seat at the bar twice to figure out what in the hell was going on at our wooden picnic bench table. I don't think we satisfied his skepticism about our motives until I brought the holy scripture of Pintarich's original book from the car in to show him our inspiration.
After throwing some shade at the former owner ("a wannabe Australian" who ripped the original name from the geographically and historically accurate place and took it to Wilsonville) and openly wondering what kind of idiots order two Fosters Oil Cans ("they were on the menu and we haven't had one since 'Nam!" was the best approximation of what we came up with), he wished us well and suggested that we turn this misguided tour into a new HBTG book.
Maybe we will Simon, mayyybe we will...
Musings:
So after the brief trip to party animal Valhalla in commercial Wilsonville (where the old Wanker's had set up shop to become new again), we returned to the geographical Wanker's Corner (first pronounced VAHN-kers to reflect the Germanic founding family name) where the new Corner Saloon had been established in the spirit of the original bar (even though the original name had been taken to Wilsonville). Considering all of this was exhausting, but we soldiered on.
Corner Saloon has the right feel of a place that's approaching its 100th birthday. The building is venerable and cozy, and while there's bric-a-brac covering every inch of this place too, it somehow feels different and more authentic. Maybe it was the extremely lo-fi projection screens and tube TVs that warmed our heart...or the Extraordinary Measures poster prominently displayed (a scene from the Brendan Fraser/Harrison Ford film shot in the bar...check the 0:27 mark of the trailer) next to the classic Neil Lomax poster (go Portland State Vikings!)...or those giant Oil Cans warming our livers...but we loved this place.
Our visit wasn't without incident though. For the first time in our tour, a suspicious owner confronted us about our incessant bar gazing, note taking, photography, and, the real deal breaker, our bizarre drink order! Simon, the owner and a British expat, came over from his seat at the bar twice to figure out what in the hell was going on at our wooden picnic bench table. I don't think we satisfied his skepticism about our motives until I brought the holy scripture of Pintarich's original book from the car in to show him our inspiration.
After throwing some shade at the former owner ("a wannabe Australian" who ripped the original name from the geographically and historically accurate place and took it to Wilsonville) and openly wondering what kind of idiots order two Fosters Oil Cans ("they were on the menu and we haven't had one since 'Nam!" was the best approximation of what we came up with), he wished us well and suggested that we turn this misguided tour into a new HBTG book.
Maybe we will Simon, mayyybe we will...
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