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Portland’s oldest dive bar is nothing if not a survivor. Kelly’s Olympian has been in business downtown for nearly 125 years, the last 70 at Southwest 4th Avenue and Washington Street. It has made it through at least two pandemics, so far. It survived the Great Depression and multiple recessions. It skirted Prohibition by becoming the “Olympian Buffet” on the main floor and a speakeasy in the basement, bartenders pouring booze down the drain in case of a raid.
It remains to be seen, however, whether Kelly’s will fully bounce back from the COVID pandemic and its aftermath.
In 2022 and 2023, the commercial property across the street, Washington Center, emptied out of tenants and became unwilling host to the city’s largest open-air fentanyl market (“Five Questions for Ben Stutz,” WW, May 10, 2023). Kelly’s employees carried Narcan in case of overdose emergencies and had to clean up human waste at the front door just to start their work days, according to bar owner Ben Stutz.
Many small business owners in Portland have to do the same thing, but the level of violence and chaos at Kelly’s felt new—and extreme. One employee was hospitalized for multiple days after an assault. Stutz and co-owner Jeff Mincheff were shelling out $15,000 a month in security guards to stay open.
Kelly’s had always been a rough-and-tumble place, but this was next level.
The bar and the whole Bullier Building just underwent a $750,000 renovation—don’t worry, there are still vintage motorcycles hanging above the bar and a robust neon sign collection on the walls—in an effort to keep Kelly’s Olympian going for the next 125 years. Stutz and co-owner Mincheff have a new idea, which they launched with a pre-Halloween party called, cheekily, “Back From the Dead”: Stack four floors of stylish coworking spaces on top of Kelly’s so that at the end of the day, the workers can just mosey on downstairs for a tipple before heading home.
“The mixture of bar and workspace is very beneficial, historically speaking,” said Chris Staudinger of Tacoma, Wash.-based historical tour company Pretty Gritty Tours during a panel discussion at Back From the Dead. “Cheers was a great example.”
But Norm and Cliff of the 1980s sitcom would likely be wowed by the amenities now installed on the top floors of the Bullier Building. (Nostalgic millennials may recall trudging up those stairs to the crow’s nest of a pirate radio station, Portland Radio Authority.) UrbanWork, a Tacoma coworking office space company, has gussied up the building with private offices, conference rooms and a lounge with a golf simulator, billiards, a stocked pantry, and cold brew and beer on tap. Offices with ample exposed brick run $315 a month for any open work space to $700 a month and up for a private, dedicated office.
“We feel a responsibility of being the stewards of this place right now,” Mincheff says. “I can’t see, you know, shuttering this place or closing the doors. We want to be able to hand the baton to the next generation.”
Back From the Dead was lousy with politicians. U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.), Multnomah County Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards, Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and District 4 City Counselors Eric Zimmerman and Olivia Clark all came to show their support. Zimmerman’s the only one who got a shout-out from the bar owners onstage, but in a follow-up interview, Stutz said he was touched by the mayor’s champagne toast. Wilson commended Kelly’s Olympian for “walking the talk” in terms of investing in downtown Portland.
Staudinger, of Pretty Gritty Tours, led the politicians and other guests on a colorful walk-through of the Kelly’s Olympian basement.
“Steam pipes, sewer pipes, random drunks,” he said, ”you could store everything underground here.”
Climbing upstairs, he handed the guests off to Reid Fetters, founder of UrbanWork, to show off the new coworking amenities on the top floors. UrbanWork is hoping for a similar transformation of the Bullier Building to what it accomplished with the Rhodes Center in downtown Tacoma. That building was at 40% occupancy during the pandemic and is now nearly full, according to the company.
“When there are problematic buildings, this is what we do with them,” Fetters said. “We do adaptive reuse.”
But the problems Kelly’s Olympian faced were never contained to the Bullier: It was always about the eyesore across the street, Washington Center, and the neighborhood and the city’s ongoing struggles with homelessness and substance abuse.
Despite the $750,000 renovation, the politicians taking a victory lap, and the champagne toast, the fact is that the Washington Center is still standing. It’s now covered by a 20,000-square-foot mural by New Zealand street artist Askew One called 7 Pillars. The “Love” and “Care” side faces Kelly’s Olympian, along with many graffiti tags that have gone up since the mural was finished last December.
Just after Stutz had finished listing other big-ticket investments in downtown Portland—he name-checked Jeff Swickard of Big Pink, Expensify’s Midtown Beer Garden, and the James Beard Public Market that is set to open next year—Josh Goudy, who also works in commercial real estate, took the mic during the Q&A and spoke aloud of the elephant in the room.
“Have you spoken to your neighbor and tried to address how they’re going to redevelop the site behind you? Have you had those conversations with the Menashes?”
Stutz said yes, he has been having those conversations. Barry Menashe, whose Menashe Properties has owned Washington Center since 2014, emailed a brief statement to WW.
“We are delighted with our new neighbors and we are hopeful for great success for them and all of downtown,” Menashe wrote. In response to questions about redevelopment of the property, Menashe said, “We don’t have any plans at this time.”
Stutz is somewhat indifferent to how Menashe Properties handles Washington Center; whether it repurposes the building, tears it down or launches some sort of private-public partnership, he just wants economic activity across the street, one way or another.
“I just want it to be successful,” Stutz said. “I want there to be no crime there. I want people to come there and then come and have drinks at our bar.”
