Vancouver's Tap Union Freehouse Is Here to Finally Occupy an Otherwise Empty Downtown Space

Real estate booms are like high tide in a winter storm. Yes, the surge is dangerous and destructive to many, but it's also the only time the sand on the top edge of the beach is finally cleansed of all the bottle caps, used condoms and half-burnt logs otherwise trapped forever. And so it was that Vancouver's new Tap Union Freehouse (1300 Washington St., Vancouver, 360-726-6921 tapunionfreehouse.com) finally came to occupy a downtown space that had sat empty since the 1960s.

Originally an annex of the century-old Luepke Flowers, the two-story art deco building was built in 1936. Tap Union's location was most recently the office of an accountant named Tilden W. Randall. Randall, the husband of Gertrude Luepke, passed away back in 1963. Randall's desk sat untouched for 50 years—a time capsule in the middle of downtown, which had a long, slow decline that's only now ending. Tap Union owner Chris Daniels found Randall's license certificates in his desk drawer, and they now hang on the wall next to individual blackboards listing the contents of each tap.

The tap list is rather conservative, the downstairs barroom is dominated by shiny tin tiles, and the indie-rock playlist includes the Shins and Peter Bjorn and John—the stuff that was playing a decade ago when the big, dark clouds of millennial-powered urban renewal started rolling in. The large upstairs lounge, on the other hand, is one of the most inviting spaces around, with soft lighting and leather couches.

Tap Union plans to introduce a full menu with smoked meats soon. The place was dead on our visit—the crowd was at another new 'Couve beer bar, the Thirsty Sasquatch—but that's partly to be expected when a building has been vacant so long that people stop looking at it.

Willamette Week