Skip to main content- ALONG CAME A SPIDER: It’s been a weird week for WW Best New Band ’08 the Builders and the Butchers. After debuting the creepy, Alicia J. Rose-directed, Henry Darger-inspired video for new single “Golden and Green,” the Butchers were named Paste magazine’s “Band of the Week” on Monday. But then organist/percussionist Ray Rude was bitten by a spider in Las Vegas, and an infection spread up his arm. According to a BB tweet, Rude is doing OK after receiving a shot, but isn’t supposed to use his left arm for a few days. It should make for an interesting finale to the band’s first headlining tour of the West Coast.
- RISING FROM THE ASHES: The recently shuttered Alberta Street Oyster Bar and Grill reopened Thursday as Branch (under the same ownership), a whiskey tavern. Casey Hopkins, owner of Vault Martini, is opening a second bar, named Jinx, in the space that last housed District. Free House Bar has applied for a liquor license in the space last held by wine bar Bodega. Alu, the aluminum-clad wine bar and restaurant in Northeast PDX that closed in March, has applied for a new liquor license under the same name. The Fife building has a new tenant: California chef Dan Straub’s Soluna Grill, an eclectic neighborhood joint, will open Sept. 1.
- SCHOOL DUDS: OK, it’s not as terrible of an idea as we thought: Brand new high-end clothing store the Kids Edge isfor the true hipster parent—who wants their tyke to rock designer labels but is too cheap to pay full price for them. The nightclub-inspired store on Northeast Broadway, thrumming with “age-appropriate” Top 40 hits (sorry T-Pain, this is Hannah Montana’s ’hood), offers rocker- and skater-inspired consignment and locally designed threads for tykes and tweens ages 2-14. Von Dutch jeans normally selling at a bank-breaking $110 go for about $20 at Edge, thanks to all the hours owner Dawn Rennie and husband Thomas (they also own car-detailing biz Autobella), spend foraging on eBay, so “kids can be hip in an un-hip economy.”
- CHAAT ROOMS: One of the two Indian food carts sitting side by side on Southwest 12th Avenue and Yamhill Street has weighed in further on the continuing rivalry (“The Chaat House Wars,” July 8, 2009). Harjinder “Harvey” Singh, the 22-year-old son of Bombay Chaat House proprietor Avtar Kaur, has written WW a 1,700-word letter going into greater detail about his parents’ divorce, his mother’s health struggles, and the ways he says his father, Daljit Singh, took advantage of his family. (Harjinder is especially upset by a divorce settlement that he says left his mother without means of support.) He concludes by extending an olive branch to new India Chaat House owner Mike Cheema: “I...would like to say sorry to Mike through this newspaper,” he writes. “And say if there is a way we can be friends it would be great. And friendship is all I want. I understand my dad cheated him, but he should understand that we need this business just as much as he needs his. Anyways…if you open up a Shell gas station next to a Chevron gas station, both will do better. And it’s just the same for Indian food.”
WWeek 2015