Crystal Hotel

Location: I've been worried about when I was going to visit all the hotels, so I decided to jump into the new year by staying at the Crystal Hotel downtown. It's a place I probably never would have gone otherwise, but I'm glad I did because I really enjoyed it. Its prime placement in downtown makes it a wonderful place to explore SW and NW. The Crystal Hotel includes the Zeus Café, Al's Den, and Ringlers Annex. It takes up an entire triangular block. Combined with the Crystal Ballroom just one block west, this whole area is a Super Block of McMenamins Fun Times.

Fellow travelers: Michaelmas, Sven & my bike. Michael visited me for dinner the first night, and Sven stopped by the second night to try out the soaking pool.

Favorite light: 

Love the lights in the Zeus Café.

 

Favorite art: The stained glass windows in the Zeus Café always made me happy. Every time I saw them they changed with the light. [Update Jan14: Hey, these stained glass windows are artistic interpretations of the Grateful Dead song "Dark Star"!] 

And I found this both interesting and puzzling: where did it come from? Was this building an old International Order of Odd Fellows location?

Food: I enjoyed everything I ate at the Zeus Café: cinnamon grape soda, spiced cranberry soda, seared salmon, toffee hazelnut pudding, chilaquiles. (Hello, homemade sodas! I WILL be back!) Since the food was going to be the same at Ringlers Annex and Al's Den I didn't bother eating there. But because I was in downtown Portland, I also took the opportunity to explore a couple of other restaurants I had been meaning to go to: The Roxy (old school diner), Chinese Garden Tea Room, Cacao (the hot chocolate pour-over is INCREDIBLE), Boxer Ramen (meh).

Passport stamps: Crystal Hotel, Al's Den, Ringlers Annex, Zeus Café, Soaking Pool

 

This is another location that requires a photo clue to receive a stamp. It turns out they change the clue about once a month.

 

Because I toured the Crystal Ballroom on the second day of my stay, I completed the entire Crystal page in the Passport. It's my first completed page! That meant I was eligible for a "Crystal Surprise": a choice between a leather glass cozy or a plastic tumbler. Instead, I asked for a Crystal Ballroom patch because I wouldn't use the other things.

Also, the soaking pool meant I completed another four experiences, which got me another gift card!

Lodging:

Room 413, right at the intersection of Burnside and SW 12th. My room had a great view of the brewery blocks and the rising moon. Most McMenamins rooms are painted a parchment color, but the walls of the rooms at the Crystal Hotel are a deep rich blue, the color of the sky the moment after twilight finally fades. Each room is named after a song and the lyrics are painted on the walls.

It's a bit noisy as a downtown hotel, but manageable -- much better than I expected near a thoroughfare like Burnside. (And they provide earplugs for sleeping if necessary.)

As usual, the bathrooms are down the hall. In this location the bathrooms also require a key card to enter. So does the soaking pool, a long wavy trench with bamboo-lined walls. The first night I had it all to myself, but Sven & I were not so lucky the second night.

Everything is connected: you can get to the hotel, the cafe, Al's Den and Ringlers Annex without ever leaving the building -- or you can enter each via a separate outside location. 

Other items of note:

• Guests at the Crystal Hotel get free admission to the Mission Theatre about four blocks to the West. It would have been an easy way to get an extra stamp, but it wasn't really showing anything I wanted to see. The Living Room Theater is even closer, but it also wasn't showing anything I wanted to see.
• I never knew Ringlers Annex was three stories. Ringlers should also win an award for the Most Clandestine Table in Portland, tucked under the stairs in the bottom floor.
• Sadly, no milkshakes at the Zeus. 
• This visit coincided with the Chinese Garden's "9 Free Days," so I popped over there. A perfectly beautiful day! I also stopped by Powells. Hard to stay in your room when there's so much to explore!

McMenamins Coffee Roasters

Location: McMenamins Coffee Roasters. It's not technically considered a location, it's considered an Experience which adds to your gift-card total. The roaster is a converted house tucked away right off MLK behind the Bridges Cafe. I wish I had thought about how close it was the the Broadway McMenamamins, because I would have planned my timing to have lunch there and gotten two stamps!

The "tour" was a bit awkward because even though they have posted hours, they're still trying to get their other tasks done. The guy who stamped my Passport seemed impassive when I wanted to ask questions or take photos, so I didn't stay long. He did offer me some coffee, though.

 

Passport stamps: Tour the Coffee Roaster

This stamp is very faint.

Other items of note:

• Apparently this is the original location; McMenamins bought the whole roaster business from the original owner several years ago.
• The McMenamins "beer truck" comes to pick up shipments to deliver along with beer and wine to all its locations, though they also ship via UPS to Seattle.
• The unroasted/green beans last for months, though once roasted the beans are used in 1-2 weeks.
• They roast & pack Monday-Wednesday, then do site inspections and such Thursday and Friday.

Here are several other presumably coffee-related machines in the building:

Olympic Club

Location: Olympic Club, the first of the hotels! This one is located in Centralia, halfway between Portland and Seattle, steps away from the train station. I had originally hoped to visit this location by biking to Union Station and taking the Amtrak Cascades to Centralia, but it didn't work out for this trip.

Fellow travelers: Brian, who traveled from Seattle to visit me the first day of my stay. Cecilia signed up for this location, but I forgot to ask her if she wanted to come, so I am including a special photo of her.

(sorry, Cecilia!)

Favorite light: A toss up between the triple ribbed sun lamps in the theater and the inset glass lamps above one of the pool tables.

Favorite art: Every time I visit this location, I look forward to seeing this sink in the bathroom, so honestly it's probably my favorite piece of art. 

But this stove was very welcome during cold weather!

But with a pub, bar, theatre and hotel, there was a lot of art, much of it historical in nature. For instance:

Food: The Fleetwood Mac was excellent. I split it w/ Brian, which was probably wise. Also delicious was the mushroom flatbread I had for dinner the first night. I also ate a beet salad I split w/ Brian, several RCs, amaretto french toast, sausage, a terrible chai latte, a lovely pot of Earl Grey tea, crab mac & cheese (not nearly as good as the Fleetwood Mac), popcorn, chicken fried steak, orange juice. The food was inconsistent: at every meal, something was cold/burnt/wrong.

Passport stamps: Play a Game, Stay the Night, Olympic Club Pub (where they accidentally gave me an apple cider stamp first), Olympic Club Hotel, New Tourist Bar.

 

 

This was the first location I've been to that required a photo clue to receive a stamp for the hotel.

It was incredibly satisfying to get so many stamps after 3 failed attempts! I have also now earned my first gift card: I think I'll collect the gift cards until my dad visits in June or until my McMenamins Passport Project completion party (if you're reading this, you will be invited!).

Lodging (a new category!):

• I really love McMenamins hotels, which are clean, cozy and beautiful. I don't even mind not having my own bathroom when the rooms are so reasonably priced and they give you big fluffy robes.
• I was in Room 11, which I quite enjoyed even though it is right next to the railroad, above the firepit and across the street from a large glowing cross. But it was a corner room at the end of a hall with two windows, and mercifully not over the theater. I enjoyed the view of the train station, the hills and the patio. And the Olympic Club provides ear plugs.
• As much as I appreciate the art at McMenamins, I am not a fan of portraits in the room staring at me. I think I've seen this at the Grand Lodge, too.
• The room was a bit cold at night, but they gave me a space heater on the second night. 
• At the Olympic Club, the rooms that don't have windows have skylights, which I think is a very nice touch. They have several rooms w/ bunk beds. They even have a suite all by itself on the bottom floor.

(stop looking at me!)

Other items of note:

• Pool is free if you are a hotel guest. Brian and I play TERRIBLE pool together, not even managing to finish one game while we waited for my check-in time. I had imagined we might play shuffleboard, but that didn't happen. Probably a good thing, or we would have been there all night. ;)
• The movie is also free if you are a hotel guest, but I didn't go to a movie. I sort of meant to, but the idea of being able to read a book from start to finish in my cozy hotel room was too delicious to resist. 
• Sadly, no milkshakes at this location.