Where everybody knows your name at Taft, Oregon
As the new owner of Snug Harbor Bar & Grill in Lincoln City's Oregon Taft Distric t(7 miles North of Depoe Bay), Leslie Portune knows exactly what she needs to do with the historic establishment.
"Nothing."
Portune loves the place just the way it is, and since taking over Aug. 1, she's convinced Snug Harbor's regulars that she's sincere. "The locals were concerned. I guess they've had a lot of people that have owned this bar over the years. Most of them wanted to make big changes and make it something else," she said. "But I love what it is. I don't want to make it into anything else. Is that crazy?"
No crazier than making a business decision while out for a drive with her husband from her Siletz River home. "We had driven out Highway 18 to see a property, and we were coming back and saw the sign. And I said, 'Oh, I think we should buy that,'" she remembers.
"My husband said, 'You're nuts,' so I bought it anyway. And I'm having a ball. I love it."
It took about two months to close on the property, and Portune spent much of that time in the place that was to become her second home. "I was in here almost every day, talking to all the people that come here about what they liked and what they didn't like. What they thought should be the same.
"They wanted it to be the way it used to be. I guess in the past this was the local place to hang out and over the years it had gotten away from that," she said. "They just wanted it back."
Based on her conversations, Portune has decided to make one change: "We're going to pull up the carpet," she said, to get back to historic floor underneath. "It's the old cork, with boot dents in the wooden floor from when the loggers used to come in here."
Portune admits the old floor is pretty beaten up, but it's authentic, and that's the way she wants Snug Harbor to be - and stay. Even though she's owned the establishment just a few weeks, she already knows many of her customers by name.
There's Darwin, who started coming in with his logger father, and remembers the very footsteps that put those dents in the floor. Ester still comes in and plays the harmonica. And Eleanor still comes in from time to time, to join her picture on the wall taken decades ago.
As Portune reels off the names, she knows she's not just talking about the history of the Snug Harbor, which has operated under the same name for 70 years. She's talking about the history of the Taft District itself. Many of her customers helped found the town and spent time in this place when it was the Taft Tavern in 1925. It's the oldest continuously operating bar on the Oregon coast that's still in its original building, she said, and she takes that responsibility seriously.
"The people that come here are everything from 21-year-old kids that play pool to 90-year-old people that settled Taft," she said. "They all just talk at the bar and get along. It's an incredible place."
Portune said she knew the first time she walked into the Snug Harbor, shortly after she moved to Lincoln County two years ago. "My husband and I had been here a few times and liked the atmosphere. It's real laid back and its mellow. Everybody always seems to be having a good time in here," she said.
"There were always several ladies that were in here without escorts. That impressed me that these women felt comfortable coming in here to meet their friends."
A long-time resident of California before moving here, Portune knows some people were worried that she might change the place, make it more of a tourist's hang-out than a local's. She's glad to see her customers know that won't happen, although that doesn't mean she doesn't like tourists. She just figures the best way to keep everyone coming is to keep the Snug Harbor honest to its roots.
"This is where the locals come and this I where the tourists come to meet the locals," she said. "There's a lot of eclectic people in this town." And helpful people, too.
"One night I was sitting here and the place was full of locals and this young couple came in and they had four kids in the car. They were looking for a place to stay," she remembers. "So we were calling, with two or three people were sitting at the bar with cell phones looking. Jerry, he came up to these people and said, 'I'm not staying at home tonight, here's my key.'
"Where else do you know that that kind of thing happens?" she asks. "They take care of each other. If somebody doesn't show up for two or three days, they go knocking on their door to see if they're all right."
It's exactly what Portune always thought her business - her life - should be.
"It's kind of like a big Lincoln City family," she said. "I think I've always been an Oregonian inside. This is definitely where I want to be.
"If I had found this place 50 years ago I would have been here 50 years ago."
Snug Harbor Bar & Grill is located at 5001 SW Highway 101. They can be contacted at 996-4976.
Barton Grover Howe covers north Lincoln County for the News-Times.
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