The Pink Elephant

The unicorn of Dive Bars.

Nice and seedy on the inside, the perfect place to drink excessively at 9:00 am without being judged.

I was a little rough on the Pink Elephant in my last review. Perhaps unduly so. I tend to view places strictly from the perspective of a potential lunch patron. In Oregon, places that serve alcohol are obliged, by law, to serve food. Many bars do so only to remain in compliance and in so doing make no pretense of said food being good. For folks who stop in to quaff a few flagons of grog, this works just fine. If a customer wants to eat, they can oblige. If you don't like what they've got, they're perfectly happy to let you find something more to your liking elsewhere.

What prompted my change of heart is this: My crew buys one keg of beer per year to quell our thirsts in deer camp. Historically, we've picked it up at Western Beverage Co.  Over time they have become more and more hidebound and less and less accommodating. Our treatment today was the final straw. Enter Rock at Columbia Distributing and the Pink Elephant. Rock explained that though they do not have a warehouse in Salem, he knew that PE could take care of us. We got three times the service from a guy who didn't even stand to make a sale than from the folks who did!

The young woman bartender, at Pink Elephant, was very helpful and we ended up ordering a keg of a beer we much prefer to the lesser brand we'd been limited to at Western Beverage for $40 less! The patrons were also obviously friendly. It will never be a lunch spot for me, but next time I'm out east and feel like wetting my whistle, you can bet the Pink Elephant is going to get some more of my money.

Whattttaaaa dive! Perfect location for a dive... right next to an adult shop, nestled in a kinda sketchy part of town... what more can you ask? Stiff drinks, average prices, pool tables, video poker? Check. Awesomely pink building covered in actual pink elephants? Check. Ha... the pink elephants somehow make this place less sketchy and more worth a random stop.

That is all. There is literally no more to say.