Doug Fir is Portland’s own log cabin of live music, rising in the east since 2004. Catch an up-and-coming touring or local act at one of the best-loved, greatest-sounding venues in town. Open 7am until late serving up a newly reinvented food menu, specialty drinks and a whole lotta wood!
A perennial favorite with musicians and fans, this log cabin bunker with an exceptionally touted sound system packs a punch of up-and-comers alongside revered acts—from locals to international legends—almost every night of the week. The minimalist but efficient downstairs venue is complemented by an additional bar and restaurant upstairs that aesthetically straddle the line between Twin Peaks and a cosmopolitan truck stop diner, full of Northwest woodwork and mid-century modern design.
▶ Once you’re in, the entire space is your playground with bars upstairs and down and plenty of nooks and crannies indoors and out, including a picnic-tabled patio with firepit.
▶ Order a drink at the first bar you bump into, but if you’re looking for something you can’t get anywhere else, try the Old Forester (a single-barrel bourbon that the DF hand-picked at the distillery in Kentucky) on the rocks with a Doug Fir Logger beer back, which was created exclusively for the venue by Breakside Brewery.
▶ Gotta go? If you use the venue’s bathroom, you may very well bump into the night’s headliner since there’s no can backstage. But if that’s crowded and you decide to hop upstairs, don’t get turned around in the cramped quarters of the mirror-filled, funhouse-esque space. Then again, don’t be too embarrassed if you do because the bar staff is already familiar with the “spectacular thuds” that emanate from within.
▶ Show’s over and you’re starving? The restaurant stays open late (and opens early—it’s actually open 20 hours a day) so grab a Fir Burger with candied bacon. And order your fries extra crispy.
