7 days ago
Jewel Box bar in Portland faces uncertain future
May 28—Jewel Box owner Nathaniel Meiklejohn is entertaining offers from investors or buyers for his idiosyncratic, James Beard-nominated bar on Congress Street, he announced in an Instagram post. Meiklejohn had been considering closing the bar altogether, he wrote.
"Since the pandemic, I have taken on a lot of debt in order to keep functioning as a business. Portland itself & the world at large is changing, the saturation of bars/restaurants in this town, the cost of living, the increase in prices of goods & the overwhelming wealth discrepancy that exists in this town/country/world are all factors contributing to this reality. We are at a point where our sales cannot pay our overhead in addition to the loans we have," the post says.
"This is likely the last year of this iteration of the Jewel Box with myself as the owner. I am unsure what the future may bring, but I invite all possibilities," it concluded.
Jewel Box, originally called Bearded Lady's Jewel Box, opened in 2014 at 644 Congress St. in the Arts District. One of Portland's early cocktail bars, it was aimed at being especially welcoming to marginalized people. The bar has made repeat appearances on the Portland Press Herald's annual Best 75 list, including this year, when then-restaurant critic Andrew Ross described it as "a dimly lit speakeasy with no sign to indicate you've found it, while the interior is what you might get if Jules Verne listened to trip-hop and drank one-too-many Back Bay Boulevardiers (bourbon, Speckled Ax coffee, Cynar, Campari)."
Meiklejohn could not be immediately reached for comment.
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