Likewise

By Jay Horton

While a bar operating as art installation (or vice versa) should illustrate all the worst stereotypes of twee Portlandia and dilettante whimsy, first impressions of Likewise typically marvel over the staggering amount of work it must take to accomplish projects like Time Travel Week, the specimen jars piled along the walls of current Neighborhood Research Institute, or the lounge-spanning-fuselage constructed for Likewise Airlines' four-hour faux-flight, which will return next year offering different destinations and shorter trips. Like the third of their "Untitled" cocktails—a subtly-bracing $9 restorative that smooths over Thai Basil drinking vinegar with soda, bitters, and Bulleit rye—the limited hours and boxy space in the heart of Hawthorne's shitheaded-tourist hub (truly, the vinegar of shopping districts) could only ever be made palatable with heaping helpings of sweetness, effervescence and unending novelty. The hosts really are laughing with us, even—especially—when we don't entirely understand the joke.

ENTERTAINMENT: "Untitled."

3564 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-206-4884, likewise.website. 4-11 pm Tuesday-Saturday.

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