Belmont Station Bar Closing For Renovations, Getting More Taps

For at while, you'll have to make do with the 1,400 bottles at the bottle shop.

(Bridget Baker)

Portland's nationally famous Belmont Station Biercafe is getting what owner Lisa Morrison says is a much belated renovation.

The beer bar, often home to some of the more esoteric and hard-to-find beer selections in town, will be updating considerably. Its owners plan to install a reclaimed-wood walnut bar top, the first fresh paint job in a very long time, and expand the beer selection by 10 new taps. That'll bring the total at Belmont Station up to 34 taps, counting the permatap of Viking's Blood Mead.

"We haven't done a whole lot with this place since even before we owned it," says Morrison. "The existing bar top is from when it was a coffee shop."

This news also means that for anywhere from a week to a month, you won't be drinking at the bar. At 4 pm on Sunday, Feb. 4, the Biercafe will close to the public and construction will begin.

Only the bar will close, however.

The 1,400-bottle beer store next door will be open as usual, as will Monk's Deli food cart behind the bottle shop: The cafe will leave the patio open for diners of Delaware-style cheesesteaks.

Morrison hopes that after a week or so, she'll be able to open up the bar again in the evening once construction is completed, but she's making no promises. Until yesterday, she didn't even know whether they'd be doing construction.

"We've been wanting to do this for awhile but with all the housing construction, it isn't easy finding subcontractors," Morrison says. "They kept saying 'We'll let you know, we'll let you know.' Well, we got a call yesterday saying, 'It's on.'"

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