On Friday, September 27th, the Publican Beer Room opened inside the Collective Oregon Eateries (CORE) food hall, supported by the bartending skills of Chris Shimamoto of Barrio fame. The CORE food cart pod and dining hall at 3612 SE 82nd Avenue recently took in carts displaced from Eastport Food Center’s closure. Now, they have made space for Shimamoto, who lost his Barrio Bar during the Portland Mercado fire on January 3rd. The grand opening weekend is as much a celebration of CORE’s growth as it is a homecoming for a beloved bartender and member of the community.

Shimamoto met CORE’s owners, Mandy Kao and Hanry Ho, in April as they worked to open their Publican Beer Room. The fortuitous introduction gave Shimamoto an option to get back to his craft and join like-minded bar owners in launching the community space they have envisioned for years. “I didn’t do anything for nine months, so today’s about coming back and being part of the community. After owning a bar for ten years, that community is really important,” said Shimamoto. “I missed that piece of it, seeing people’s lives, and I missed all the dogs.”

Regulars greeted Shimamoto on opening day, with some making a significant effort to attend. “Rosie doesn’t leave her house [much], but she came once a week with her friends for nine years to my bar every Thursday at 1:30. So today, she made an exception and came out for the opening,” explained Shimamoto. It is the many customers like Rosie that motivated him to get back to work. “When your community shows up for you, you want to show up for the community,” said Shimamoto. He also wanted his college-age daughters to see how to face adversity. “You always want to show your best example to your kids, so I wanted to show them that after having something tragic happen you get back up. That’s just part of life.”

After the early morning fire destroyed his bar last January, Shimamoto received significant support from people who wanted to help with the recovery. Like many losses in life, it takes time to process, and even now, he is not ready to rebuild what the fire took. “It wasn’t time for me to reopen a bar, but I wanted to work for somebody that had a shared vision and a love of community, and Hanry and Mandy have that,” remarked Shimamoto. The opportunity to grow CORE’s offerings is the right fit for this next chapter in his life. Chris Shimamoto has a passion for wine, and Publican Beer Room has a wide selection for people to choose from. However, the bar owners plan to expand into a secluded neighboring space in the food hall with a second shop called Publican Wine Room. Shimamoto will also tend to that business, featuring a stone wine cellar motif and dedicated seating for a focused experience. Shimamoto will create a rotating menu of wines that will stand alone or pair well with the food served by CORE’s many vendors.

Chris Shimamoto knows many of the Barrio fans will follow him to this new location, and he intends to stock a full selection of Mexican beer along with the sangrias and micheladas he served at the Portland Mercado. However, he is excited to adjust the bar’s selection to serve the community surrounding 82nd Avenue. “We didn’t have the Asian population there [at the Mercado], but we have a huge Asian population in this area. So we’ll have a full selection of soju, sake, and makgeolli, which is Korean rice wine. And we’ll have a full selection of Asian beer,” explained Shimamoto. As remarkable as his old bar was, it had only five beer taps and 18 indoor seats, and this new bar offers much more variety than was possible in Barrio. “There’s ten beer taps. We could never do cider on tap there. Here, we can do two cider taps. I have Nitro taps. We have a full bar. I didn’t have a full liquor license at Barrio, just beer and wine. So now, I can make cocktails,” said Shimamoto.

Publican Beer Room features a dual-sided bar serving guests from the outside cart area and the interior food hall. Guests can take their drinks anywhere within the CORE seating areas, making it easy to grab meals and beverages wherever patrons are comfortable. Mandy Kao designed the bar and seating area. It creates a warm, defined gathering space at the center of the hall without walls, allowing guests to expand into the open seating of the naturally illuminated food hall. Soon, five televisions featuring a variety of programming will hang on the walls. “It’s not necessarily a sports bar per se. We’ll have sports playing, but we’ll have a little bit of everything,” said Hanry Ho. He explained that the bar and TVs are essential to creating a space where people can feel comfortable gathering and hanging out.

People attending the opening weekend can enjoy live music from 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. The September 28th performance features Hannah Sloane-Barton. “Hannah is a union organizer, she’s an activist, but she also has a background in opera. She plays violin and is one of the loveliest singers that played at my old bar,” remarked Shimamoto. In addition to a unique and varied selection of drinks, people can find an assortment of food from cart and food hall vendors. CORE has always offered a place for people to stop for a meal, but now the owners hope it will become a destination for the neighborhood to gather and feel connected. The bar is now open daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and the owners invite everyone to come see the bar and meet the bartender. “Chris is actually quite the character himself; he is definitely a big draw just being in a community for ten-plus years. So we love having him here,” said Hanry Ho.

---