The long, strange trip is far from over. Especially in Portland.
Sure, other cities boast their own Dead-themed businesses; there’s a Grateful Head Pizza Oven and Tap Room with locations in Broken Bow, Okla., and Hot Springs, Ark., and a place called Ripple Rays in Richmond, Va. But Portland’s relationship with the band seems especially thick.
While the 21st Avenue sports bar decorated with marching bears and Dead lyrics Lightning Will was a casualty of COVID, we’ve still got Fire on the Mountain—which is named for a Dead song, and so committed to the bit that one of its restrooms is decorated with a decidedly nightmarish version of those marching bears…