Bit House Saloon was a bar and restaurant in Portland, Oregon, United States. Established in 2015, the business operated in the Nathaniel West Buildings in the city's Buckman neighborhood. The high-energy squad "Team Riff-Raff" managed the bar from 2016 to 2021, hosting pop-ups and inviting other chefs to collaborate.
Bit House garnered a positive reception and was included in several lists of Portland's best bars. The business was named "Portland's 2015 Bar of the Year" by The Oregonian, and was named among Playboy fifty "Best New Bars 2016". Bit House Saloon rebranded as Bit House Collective in 2021, staying open and serving meals and drinks during the COVID-19 pandemic. The managing partnership shifted to a new bartender and chef, as well as Pono Brewing, featuring "Filipino drinking food".
In June 2021, that management was replaced by Jewan Manuel's pop-up Plant Based Papi, serving vegan entries. By early 2022, the vegan Cuban pop-up restaurant Miami Nice used the space. Bit House Collective also hosted drag brunches before closing in 2022.
Description
Bit House Saloon was housed in an 1896 building constructed by Nathaniel West, part of the National Register of Historic Places-listed Nathaniel West Buildings, in southeast Portland's Buckman neighborhood. Condé Nast Traveler described the bar as "a swanky cocktail lounge, a casual tap house, and a happy-hour destination", with "universal appeal". In Moon Oregon (2020), Judy Jewell and W. C. McRae described the business as a "large and rollicking redbrick bar with a nice patio".
Food menu
The food menu included a bologna sandwich, Rocky Mountain oysters, and biscuits. It was later changed to include crunchwraps, tacos, and tamales. The restaurant also served chicken wings with jalapeño, serrano, fresno and ancho chilies with onion, garlic, vinegar and butter. Bit House's brunch menu, launched in 2018, included "a melange of breakfast classics with a hint of Latin American flavors", such as horchata French toast, roasted poblano hash, a McMuffin-like breakfast sandwich with chorizo, and a frozen blackberry margarita.
Drinks
Cocktails included the Ace of Spades (whiskey) and the Sloe Gin Fizz 3000 (gin, cinnamon, lemon, egg white, and a sodium bicarbonate cube). The Wexter's Playground has been described as a "tiki and comic book-inspired behemoth ... starring a dinosaur, powdered sugar, and single-barrel brandy from Germain Robin". The drink included Orchard Pear liqueur, Pedro Ximenez Sherry, lime, Blackstrap bitters, and salted almond, and was garnished with a toy dinosaur, mint, and apple slices. The Boom Swagger Swagger had Cruzan Black Strap Rum, falernum, Dry Curaçao, and Stumptown cold brew nitro draft.
The K23 had rum, jasmine, mint, lemon, and beet, and the House of Bambooze had sherry, vermouth, and salted almonds. The Breakfast with Paula Deen had coffee, cherry-washed bourbon, pecan milk, and "toffee-rich chantilly French cream liqueur". One version of a boilermaker paired Angel's Envy Rye with Scrimshaw Pilsner, from North Coast Brewing Company. The restaurant also served single-barrel bourbons on tap.
Bit House Collective had a drink called the Padam, Pandan, Pandan O.F. with vodka, bourbon, pandan, blueberry, galangal root and bitters.
History
Bit House Saloon
"Bit House" is a colloquial term for a cheap saloon. The 150-seat Bit House Saloon opened on July 31, 2015, in a space previously occupied for more than three decades by East Bank Saloon. Elk Collective oversaw the remodel prior to opening. Days after opening, shelves behind the bar displaying "rare, hard-to-find and almost-impossible-to-replace imported and Japanese whiskeys" collapsed.
Bit House Saloon was named among Playboy fifty "Best New Bars 2016". The review began, "Five of Oregon's best bar managers walk into a bar. And they don't leave! Instead, they form Team Riff Raff, the high-energy squad behind Portland's Bit House Saloon." Team Riff Raff members included Jesse Card, Chris Churilla, Nick Cifuni, Brian Gilbert, and Chauncey Roach. Card left in 2017.
Ricky Bella became chef in 2017. In 2022, Brooke Jackson-Glidden of Eater Portland wrote, "To bring people into the bar on slow nights, Bella began hosting pop-ups, collaborating with chefs and line cooks from around town; people like Top Chef and fellow Imperial alumnus Doug Adams would step into the kitchen at Bit House. He remembers one particular Cinco de Mayo with other Mexican American chefs; they set up a trompo outside the bar, made with a side of pork."