Bar Guide 2014: Union Jack's

By Matthew Korfhage

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Union Jack's

938 E Burnside St., 236-1125, unionjacksclub.com. 2:30 pm-2:30 am daily. $5 cover on Friday and Saturday.

Union Jack's little rock-'n'-roll strip club operates at the exact center of the Portland strip-bar continuum: It's both a dedicated moneymaker and casual hangout, suggestively seamy but still very comfortable for the sort of women who strongly prefer whiskey to wine. Regulars sit at front booths or the bar, talking to old friends who dance there, while couples and lone wolves pony immediately at the racks of the two stages; the couches by the DJ booth remain neutral territory, occupied only a bit nervously. Bruce Springsteen, when he stopped here over a decade ago, sat in the back and refused all advances. But the back smoking patio is more a low-key outdoor dive bar: Dancers and day drinkers shoot shit on mostly equal terms in the relative calm of the concrete porch before re-entering the carnal fray. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

WWeek 2015

Matthew Korfhage

Matthew Korfhage

Matthew Korfhage has lived in St. Louis, Chicago, Munich and Bordeaux, but comes from Portland, where he makes guides to the city and writes about food, booze and books. He likes the Oxford comma but can't use it in the newspaper.

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