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Video poker at the over-century-old Kelly's Olympian has replaced the card room, an entrance once housing a shoeshine and a smoke stand now leads to an adjoining music venue, and their turn-of-the-millennium overhaul replaced day-drinking seniors with nightlife tourists ordering craft pints below the new owner's airborne motorcycle collection. But still behind the bar, a hidden hatch leads ice-gathering staff down the rickety staircase to an expansive basement holding traces of a Prohibition-era speakeasy. Staff recently discovered a rudimentary flush system, lending credence to long-standing rumors of a urine trough carved into the foot of the bar so that rough-hewn working men could unzip and let flow amid rounds of shots. But customs do change over time. If 22nd-century archaeologists sift through the remains of a long-abandoned Kelly's, what would seem weirder—evidence that patrons once pissed at the bar or parked on the ceiling?
Happy Hour: 4-7 pm daily.
Entertainment: Side room live music and other antics in a former knife shop.
426 SW Washington St., 503-228-3669, kellysolympian.com. 11 am-1 am daily.
Willamette Week