Despite a Gallery of Sad-Clown Paintings and an Animatronic Eyeball in a Vise, Creepy’s Isn’t Actually Creepy

The new space from the owners of White Owl Social Club is less horror house than self-consciously quirky sideshow.

(Henry Cromett)

627 SE Morrison St., 503-889-0185, creepys.business.site. 3 pm-2:30 am daily. Happy hour 3-6 pm daily: $5 drafts, wine, frozen cocktails and food specials. 

Despite a gallery of sad-clown paintings and an animatronic eyeball in a vise, Creepy's isn't actually creepy. The new space from the owners of White Owl Social Club is less horror house than self-consciously quirky sideshow—a design-happy display case of dolls, deer heads and big-eyed kitsch, presided over by a giant painting of John Quincy Adams with moving eyes. The carnivalesque menu serves intense frozen-coffee cocktails, pickletinis and deep-fried peanuts, not to mention a seriously excellent spicy fried-chicken sandwich ($9). The game room of pinball and pool from former tenant Charlie Horse Saloon remains in the back, though now it feels more adult rec room than billiard hole. The owners have aired the previously claustrophobic place out a bit with an open window looking out onto a sidewalk teeming with Dig A Pony patrons, and they've expanded the patio seating to the edge of the sidewalk. Really, the only truly creepy thing in Creepy's is a sultrily posed carving of a sad-eyed chimpanzee, which sent off far too many signals at once. But maybe that's the whole point.

(Henry Cromett)

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