At Devils Point, the Art Show is On Every Dancer’s Body—and on the Stripperaoke Stage

Foster-Powell strip club Devils Point is probably the most famous strip club in Portland.

(Christopher Onstott)

5305 SE Foster Road, 503-774-4513, devilspointbar.com. 11 am-2:30 am daily. Happy hour 11 am-7 pm: $3 wells, $1 off drafts, half off food you probably shouldn't order.

Established: January 2001

Foster-Powell strip club Devils Point is probably the most famous strip club in Portland, for a very simple reason: the weekly Sunday night "Stripperoake" featuring dancers onstage with terrible singers. And so throughout the weekend this place is packed with roving drunks, ne'er-do-wells, New Portland couples on ironic dates, wealthy solo lesbians buying up the rail, dressed-down dancers waiting for their shifts, immodestly engaged dancer-groupie regulars, security strong men, thirsty randos, bros in sport coats, and more cute couples on dates. All of it is overseen by a genre-fucking transgressive gay dance announcer, and every last performer is sporting tattoos—a dazzling kaleidoscope of elaborate human canvasses—to a soundtrack that leans hard on Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails and the rest of your angsty-CD binder.

(Sam Gehrke)

Other nights, like, say, a Tuesday, the bar is quiet and cavernous, with a familial locals-only vibe doing battle with the quiet desperation of the empty strip club. The $5 wells are Broker's and therefore gross—but they're only $3 at happy hour. Success! There are gentle details at Devils Point if you know where to look. The white geraniums dying on in a vase on the bar; the lowball glass at the well filled with complimentary Starburst (assorted); the glossy indie posters advertising tonight's house dancers on the wall.

Bar story: The dancers here are some of the best in town, and they really go for it on the pole. Sometimes ambition leads to disaster. Not five minutes after my walking through the door on a recent visit, a dancer sadly (and quite accidentally) landed a heavy face plant, chin first, into the burled-wood show floor. She soldiered on and finished the dance, to much applause.

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