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Vantucky, the ‘Couve, Vancouver (with an aggressive French accent), and now the highly online arbitrary misspellings Vancouber, Vancoufer, etc. You haven’t inspired the respect you deserve, not as long as I’ve known you. With that confidence I call Vancouver the New Jersey of Portland: It’s smaller and less polished, the gas pump laws are different, and for a long time its cultural identity felt more connected to what’s across the river than what it holds for itself.
But even though nobody enjoys dunking on Vancouver more than me, I can admit when I’m wrong. Vancouver is coming into its own as a cultural force to be reckoned with, and not just because Portland keeps pricing people out north. Having lived nearly half my life in Portland proper, I really do enjoy going home and seeing the subtly different strain of weirdo that exists because it grows alongside the people scared of Portland and its infernal one-way streets. They fight harder for less recognition, but it might honestly all be paying off.
Vancouver might not have a major performance art venue—Ilani Casino and the Ridgefield amphitheater don’t count—but it now has a repertory movie theater, a devil museum, a gay bar, and a brewery that has built a business around carnal pleasure. Does Satan have a hold on Vancouver, Washington? God, I hope so.
Soak in the Silver screen
I saw my first PG-13 movie at the historic Kiggins Theatre (1011 Main St., 3600-816-0352, kigginstheatre.com), which opened almost 90 years ago, in 1936. It was sticky and kind of scary back then, but an extensive renovation began in 2006 that turned it into one of Vancouver’s most significant cultural attractions. Nearly 20 years later, cinephiles need no longer cross the Columbia River and brave one-way streets to catch second-run blockbusters, locally produced movies on Washington history, or even a shadow cast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Dive Into Watering holes
The Kiggins serves booze—it’s the namesake of the Kiggins Act, the 2013 piece of local legislation that legalized alcohol sales in small theaters in Washington state—but if you want to talk about your movie somewhere else, downtown Vancouver has a respectable number of good bars within a brisk walk of one another. UnderBar (1701½ Broadway St., 360-258-1146, underbar.biz) earns a shout-out not only for being Vancouver’s only dedicated LGBTQ+ bar, but for its eclectic décor and the quality of its menu, entertainment and subterranean ambience.
Relevant Coffee and Irrelevant Beer (1703 Main St., Units A and B, 971-319-5773 and 360-258-0624, relevantcoffee.com and irrelevantbeer.com) keep Main Street busy from sunrise to sundown. Relevant Coffee brews its own roasted coffee and espresso, but can also steam up turmeric, chai, and sweetened and unsweetened green tea matcha lattes. Of all Vancouver’s breweries to choose from, Irrelevant Beer’s irreverent house kitchen, Goon Burgers, is better than its gimmicky name suggests. Yes, the staff knows what gooning is, and dare you to crack up with smash burgers slathered in creamy white signature Goon Sauce (the gag flies over the heads of roving families with children).
Consult The Devil You Know
If you want something naughty or nice still close to downtown Vancouver, you’ve got two options that are honestly a little combination of both. The Devil-ish Little Things Museum (503-841-4232, instagram.com/devilish_little_things_museum) is a private collection of demon-themed memorabilia and merchandise from across the ages open by appointment. Ice Cream Renaissance (1925 Main St., 360-694-3892, icecreamrenaissance.com) has served heaping scoops of locally sourced ice cream stacked with fun toppings for nearly 25 years. They both offer something fun and bad yet perfectly good.
Look Closer To Home
White Oak Books (1700 Main St., Suite D, 360-949-6928, whiteoakbooks.net) is an independent bookstore kitty-corner from Relevant Coffee, et al., hanging an updated version of Daniel Quasar’s LGBTQ+ Pride flag in its window. White Oak Books also hosts reading events, drawing Vancouver’s literati downtown. But downtown doesn’t have all of Vancouver’s best treasures. The family-owned Larson’s Bakery (13411 SE Mill Plain Blvd., 3600-253-4555), for example, was our family’s favorite bakery when I was growing up, with little changed since it opened in 1986. And though you could drive past it on Fourth Plain without realizing it, Golden China (5406 NE Fourth Plain Blvd., 360-695-0626, goldenchinawa.com) has served up not just affordable albeit basic Chinese food for more than 20 years, but also dished out a solid generation of Vancouver high school and college students’ first taste of independence. I’ve lost a lot of touchstones to the era when I was a kid with a bad haircut who thought Olive Garden was fancy (it is), so these simple reminders of home have become more precious, even if they aren’t the most convenient drives.