It’s Good To Be Back

[March 18th, 2009]

Minutes after ducking out of the rain and into Red Fox (5128 N Albina Ave., 282-3934), a friend of mine declared it to be the archetypal Portland bar. Which is hard to deny, what with the wordless-logo shingle out front, the taxidermied Vulpes vulpes mounted over the liquor cabinet, the asymmetrical chandeliers and the blackboard listing a formidable selection of craft beers. (The taps are an eclectic rotation, even for Puddletown; the current lineup is Ninkasi Total Domination IPA, Double Mountain Hop Lava and New Old Lompoc LSD, each $4 a pint.) It also holds to civic tradition by being the latest tenant of a space with high turnover—within the last two years, the garden walkway previously led to Small World Cafe and the Albina Green. Red Fox makes far stronger use of the space—its hardwood and crimson paint scheme brings to mind the Overlook Hotel’s Lloyd the Bartender—and already it has achieved the final qualification for any Portland pub: a service-industry employee telling a story with the punch line, “This salmon fucking sucks.”.