Don't forget about: Local 188

While Schlitz and PBR Bottles hold down the prices ($2), this is really a place to enjoy things of quality: cocktails, wines, beer, tapas and entrees. Even the view is upper-class; you look east to the triumphant Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and the square he rules with an iron first.

Local 188 is, in most people’s eyes, a restaurant first and foremost. Though the space is one booming room, there are two distinct areas. There is the dining room on the right, dotted with miniscule tables for two. On the left is the lounge, where the music is louder, the seating informal and the drink more liberally consumed.

“That’s an easy one, It’s definitely a young clientele,” manager Garry Bowcott says of the lounge’s crowd. “The music’s an important thing that we do. If you go to a tapas bar in Spain, the music is blaring, people are talking. We’d like to extend that. From the bar we control the volume of the music in the lounge and dining room. The lounge music is nudged up, when it reaches a certain point (in the night) we make them the same. We like to keep older people dining in the dining room.”

This dichotomy is visible from the street. Couples and families on one side and rabble-rousers on the other by the gorgeous bar, worth an explanation itself. Painted by Patrick Corrigan, whose works abounds at Local 188, the bar itself is worth a trip. It is covered in shapes, creatures and designs...and it is huge, worth pacing back and forth to view from all angles. The rest of the building continues the theme, blending interesting architecture, plants and decorations into an almost Bohemian space.

If you are familiar only with American brews, stepping to this bar will be a shock. A good portion of the drafts and bottles are imports, mostly from the Old World, but the highlight was the $6 Quebecois beer ordered by my aforementioned buddy.

“This actually is a pretty good deal,” he exclaimed, after noting the 9 percent alcohol content. “It’s like drinking wine.”

The majority of the beer was unfamiliar, a welcome change when most bars put together their beer selections like this:

And two or three snooty imports, like St. Pauli Girl paired with Guinness.

Local 188 spans the whole economic spectrum, with $2 PBR bottles displayed alongside $45 bottles of Eisenbahn Lust champagne beer. The choices are varied because Bowcott pays close attention to the menu.

“I love beer, it’s a simple fact. I love beer and I love wine. The beer list, I like to keep it seasonal. Like Hampshire beer in the winter. Most places run it year round, but it’s the original seasonal beer. It’s kind of silly,” Bowcott says, dropping knowledge on me with each sentence.

“In warmer weather we start to see lighter styles. In about a month we’ll have Chamblais (white beer), the light style, and maybe some Paulaner Hefe-Weizen. This time of the year is special for German beers. And for us, pairing beer with food is an important aspect.”

There’s a lot of beer and and food being sold at Local 188. Opened at 188 State St. in 1999 (named after both its location and owner Jay Villani’s admiration for the working-class, hence the “Local”) in a cubbyhole space, Local 188 closed in April 2007 and reopened four months later on Congress Street.

The main factor in the move was that the restaurant was losing business on the weekends. Lines would flood out the door and diners would leave for other eateries due to long waits. Bowcott adds, “We haven’t had trouble filling the place,” easily evident to passersby.

Local 188 leads a double-life. Music-savvy bartenders play electronic music for the twenty somethings at the bar. Local DJs stop by to spin tunes, and live music is becoming a more regular affair. It is all quite a stark contrast to the formal dinner affairs just feet away.

I could tell from my conversation with Bowcott that Local 188 is poised to become a popular nightspot (“please mention we are open for drinks until 1 a.m. seven days a week,” he pleaded), and for good reason. A one-of-a-kind drink selection paired with $6 Tapas and attention to detail make Local 188 incomparable to other bars and taverns in the boozy ocean of Portland.

Posted by John Burgess Everett at 03:28 PM