Times Theatre and Public House, 133 Broadway Street, Seaside, Oregon
Seaside Brewery, 851 Broadway Street, Seaside, Oregon
Hop & Vine Bottle Shop & Tap Room, 220 South Columbia Street, Seaside, Oregon
Sam's Seaside Cafe, 104 Broadway Street, Seaside, Oregon
On my trip to America earlier this year, I met my friend Mistah Rick in Portland for a week of brewery and pub wanderings. And while we were there, we hired a car for a couple of days so we could drive to the coastal town of Seaside. This popular spot was where my mother grew up, and later it was the location of one of my parents’ retirement homes. Although I visited the town several times as a child and also when I was an adult living in Seattle, I hadn’t been here since my dad died and my mother moved back to California. So I was looking very forward to not only a nostalgic visit, but also walking on the beach and up and down the 2.6-mile-long Seaside Prom, seeing Tillamook Head to the south, sampling some nice fresh seafood, and of course visiting the breweries and taps that have appeared since I last visited.
After the breathtaking 78-mile drive down Highway 26, where we were surrounded by lush pine forests, we arrived in Seaside just before noon. It was too early to check into our hotel, so we parked the car just beyond the Necanicum River and went exploring on foot. The main drag, Broadway, extends all the way to the beach and the Prom, where there is a traffic turnaround (or roundabout, if you like). In the centre of that is a bronze statue of Meriwether Lewis & William Clark, marking the end of their famous expedition in 1804-1805 from Illinois to the Pacific Ocean. As we walked down Broadway I recognised many things from my childhood: the Arcade, the Bumper Cars, the Shooting Gallery, and an old cinema which, to our delight, has been reborn as the Times Theatre and Public House. At this point it was time for lunch and a pint, so this was our first stop.
Originally opened in 1940, this Art Deco cinema debuted with the film Waterloo Bridge starring Robert Taylor. It showed feature films until it closed in 1989, with the final film being Parenthood with Steve Martin. When I ascended the opulent stairs to the balcony and the toilets, I recalled my mother having worked at a couple of cinemas when she was young, and I wondered if this could possibly have been one of them. As she’s gone now, I’ll never know.
In 2018, the Times Theatre reopened as the home of Seaside’s own Sisu Brewing Company. Although customers can enjoy their pints in the loge seats upstairs, Rick and I decided to take a table downstairs, behind the auditorium seating and in front of the bar, where we had a spectacular view of the brewery vats up on the stage. For our first round of the day we shared two pints. Our first choice, Saint Urho IPA (7.0% ABV, Sisu Brewing Company, Seaside, Oregon) was pleasant but a tiny bit too malty for my taste. The other was Tribute IPA (7.2% ABV, Sisu). Described as a West Coast style double IPA, this was supposed to be very hoppy, but it was again quite heavy on the malt, producing a sweetness that I’m not too fond of. Both beers were very copper in colour, indicating to both of us an overabundance of malt. And both tasted very similar.
For lunch we split an order of three halibut fish tacos, made with proper corn tortillas, and they were really very good. The action onstage currently featured brewery workers dispensing beer from the vats into kegs. Behind us, on the wall behind the bar, a row of TV screens were all screening a Mariners baseball game.
Before we left, the waitress gave us a taste of the brewery’s IOS IPA (8.4% ABV), which was an easy-drinking citrus pale and probably more to our liking. But considering the strength, we were glad we’d gone with the lower-ABV choices.
Besides brewing beer and serving food, the Times Theatre and Public House also features live music nights and sporting events, and the bar has rotating taps and offers beer flights.
Later on, after we’d explored down the coast a bit and checked into our hotel, we decided to start off our evening by walking down to the far end of Broadway to check out the Seaside Brewing Company. Housed in the old City Hall jailhouse, this is a pretty cool space, with holding cell bars mounted on the original brick walls. Apparently the single jail cell is now where the kegs of beer are stored.
As we usually do, we took two seats at the bar, because that’s always where the action is. The barman was very knowledgeable and had a good attitude, which we appreciated after an earlier unsatisfying experience at a brewery down the coast. I first had a taste of Northwest Style IPA (7.0% ABV, Seaside Brewing Company, Seaside, Oregon), brewed with a combination of Citra, Mosaic, and Hercules hops, the latter being new to me. This was very drinkable and easy, so Rick went for a pint of it. I moved on to taste the Seasidesunsetsasquasquicentennial Pale Ale (4.7% ABV), simply because with a name like that I had to. Hopped with Cascade, Citra, and Nelson Sauvin, this tongue-twister of a brew was even better. The barman then offered us a taste of DIP Tripel Flip Fantasia (9.0% ABV), which was a Belgian tripel. And wow, it was ,most definitely a Tripel, and just a bit too powerful for a pre-dinner pint. I finally settled on a pint of Saint Savage Raspberry Belgian Sour (5.0% ABV), brewed with fresh raspberries. And it was basically a good sour, very nice and pleasant, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I really liked this place and could have spent more time--but we had other fish to fry and eat, so to speak. And if we sat there and drank everything on the menu, we probably would have regretted it later.
For dinner we walked down the road and enjoyed a fine seafood meal at Dooger’s. And then, searching for one last pint before bedtime, we happened upon a real gem for beer lovers. Located on a side road behind the Times Theater, the Hop & Vine Bottle & Tap Room is small and features not only a cooler full of beers to take away, but also a great variety of beers on tap. The place was pretty empty on this late Thursday night, but we didn’t mind that. We took two seats at the bar and chatted with Leonardo, who demonstrated his vast knowledge of beers. I decided on a pint of Well I’ll Be Hazy Pale (5.2% ABV, Fontaine Flora, Morganton, North Carolina). Brewed with a perfect mix of Citra, Galaxy, and Mosaic hops, this elicited an “ooh, Yes! Ooh, Yes! OOOOOH Yes" directly from my palate. Rick went for a glass of Scylla's Revenge (12.3% ABV, Little Beast Brewing, Portland, Oregon). This collaboration with Moksa Brewing of Rocklin, California was a barrel-aged Imperial Stout, and wow! It was sweet, but in the manner of a fine port. It was very kind of oomoopish!
As we chatted with Leonardo we learned that he was born in Seattle and lived in Mexico for a while. And he also knew a lot about both beer and wine. So what a pleasurable nightcap this was. We could have easily stayed for another pint, but considering we seemed to float back up to our hotel, it was probably a wise idea that we didn’t. After all, tomorrow was another day.
The next morning after breakfast we took a long walk south down the Prom, where I pointed out my parents’ old house, and on the way back we stopped to visit the Seaside Salt Works. We ended up at Sam’s Seaside Cafe for lunch. Out in front we met up with a local woman with whom my mother became friends after my dad passed away. Lee and I had never met in person, so between me watching out for a 70s-ish woman in a red vest and her watching for two people wearing hats, we recognised each other instantly. We seated ourselves at a table by the front window, where Lee ordered a soft drink because she had to drive all the way back to Salem, and Rick and I had pints of Fort George IPA (7.6% ABV, Fort George Brewery, Astoria, Oregon). This beer turned out to be an extremely nice and appropriate hair of the dog, so to speak. Our blackened salmon sandwiches, although not really peppery enough, were quite yummy, and they were accompanied by really nice handmade chips with the skins still on. While we sipped and dined, Lee told us all sorts of things she could remember about my mother which I’d never heard before, about her life and her retirement years in Seaside. She mentioned a lot of things I would have been interested in asking my mother about, but of course it was a little too late. That’s what always happens when time, and life, goes whizzing by. So the best advice--at the risk of sounding like Anthony Bourdain or Kurt Vonnegut--is to enjoy it all while you can, travel, meet as many interesting people as you can, and sample plenty of beers along the way.
Related Links
- All about the Lewis & Clark Expedition in 1984 and 1985 (Wikipedia)
- 30 Quotes from Anthony Bourdain on making your life a fulfilling adventure, by Kevin Daum (Inc.Com)
- ...and some quotes from Kurt Vonnegut (BrainyQuote)