After being at sea for 16 hours, Swabbie Chadd and I arrived at Portland’s Thatch at 6pm on a Friday ready to drink. Tucked into a quaint storefront on Broadway, it’s easy to miss if you’re not looking for it. What I was expecting to find was a dark little Tiki bar, but to my pleasant surprise they had warm natural lighting and a terrific food menu to boot. As I didn’t get a good picture of the exterior (I was dangerously sober upon arrival), let’s start with the interior and work our way into it:

Booth view looking out the front window. The vibe of the neighborhood is relaxed residential, and there’s lots of shops along Broadway as well.

Settle into one of the half-dozen or so comfortable booths and have a drink why don’t you. Or seven. There’s plenty of cabs.

Love their wood floor, Eames chairs, plants, stellar lamps, and bamboo ceiling. It really felt retro and lived in, like it’s been there longer than its established date of 2007. That’s due in no small part to the owner’s keen eye for authenticity, and the fact that some of his decor was picked up from the now defunct Jasmine Tree chinese restaurant—who got some of their decor from the defunct Portland Kon-Tiki. It’s cool to see the decor live on because you can really feel the rich history in it.

Under the bar is some of that much talked about thatch. Who doesn’t love thatch? It’s wonderfully thatchy.

Michael fits perfectly into the festive and garish environment, staring down at the drinkers with a bemused smile. I want that jacket. Time to move onto the drink menu, Mr. Jackson:

Laminated and easy to read (even after a few), the Thatch menu very impressively has a handle on the Trader Vic and Don the Beachcomber classics, as well as a few of their own: including the Craig’s Mistake, a winking homage to the Tiki-Ti’s Ray’s Mistake.



Swabbie Chadd had the drink on the left, a Royal Hawaiian Mai Tai. According to the menu, “A Hawaiian twist on the Mai Tai, combining pineapple, orange juice, grenadine, and a blend of dark and light rum.” I had the drink on the right, an “authentic Trader Vic’s recipe of Puerto Rican Gold Rum, Jamaican Dark Rum, fresh-squeezed lime, orange Curacao, and a splash of orgeat. Garnished with aromatic mint and a spent lime shell.” Both were stellar.

The Zombie. “Don the Beachcomber’s most notorious drink, this is a simplified version of the 1934 original. Cinnamon, grapefruit, lime, and a blend of aged and overproof rums create a drink to wake the living dead!” By simplified they mean they use Trader Tiki’s Don’s Mix, a hand-crafted syrup made in Portland. For info on Trader Tiki Syrups, see my entry here.

It didn’t photograph that well, but if you look closely at the top of this drink you’ll see fire, which burned for a good three or four minutes inside a spent lime shell. The Lift-Off is “a take on Donn Beach’s classic recipes, with orange, lime, cinnamon, falernum, and a blend of dark and overproof rums, served with crushed ice.” This one put Swabbie Chadd under the table. He said he was just looking for loose change, but that doesn’t explain the drooling and speaking in tongues.

The official Thatch mug, which according to the menu is of Marquesan origin. They surmise it’s a god sitting on a baby, but it could also represent drunkenly trying to hide your girlfriend from your wife. To the food menu!

Very Trader Vic inspired food, I had two items on the menu: the Crab Rangoon and the Breaded Shrimp. Both were great. In fact, better than the versions they serve at Trader Vic’s in Los Angeles, which taste bland in a chain restaurant sort of way. These felt homemade in a good way.

The breaded shrimp with sweet chili sauce was terrific, and the rice with teriyaki glaze and sesame seeds was a great touch. Well, my maiden voyage at Thatch was a success: the vibe was friendly, the food and drinks were dynamite, all in all a great little piece of tropical escapism right in the heart of Portland. Well done, Team Thatch. And now I must dramatically turn and yell, HOIST THE MAIN SAIL, SWABBIE CHADD, WE SAIL TO UNKNOWN SHORES!
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