If Portland had a “living museum” where you could eat the exhibits, it would be Huber’s.
This place has been feeding and watering Oregon since 1879, back when downtown was still rough-edged and river-soaked and a saloon lunch counter could make you a loyal customer for life. It started as the Bureau Saloon, opened by W. L. Lightner at First and Morrison, and within a few years, a bartender named Frank Huber was slinging drinks behind the bar. Then he was a partner. Eventually, he became the owner, in true rags-to-riches style.
A Spot Called Huber’s
The real heartbeat of the story, the part that turns Huber’s from “old restaurant” into “Portland legend,” is the Louie family. In 1891, Huber hired Louie Wei Fung (Jim Louie), a Chinese immigrant who’d arrived in Portland as a kid, to work the saloon’s “free lunch” counter. That old-school arrangement was simple: keep buying drinks, and the food kept coming. Jim Louie’s turkey became the thing people talked about, and the partnership became the thing that lasted.
Huber’s even stayed open during the Great Flood of 1894, when the Oregon Encyclopedia notes that Louie reportedly served customers from behind the counter while sitting in a rowboat, dishing out turkey sandwiches to patrons in boats. That’s not a cute Portland myth, that’s “we don’t close” energy from the 1800s.
In 1895, the Bureau Saloon became Huber’s, and in 1910 it moved into its current home in the Oregon Pioneer Building. The stained glass skylight, mahogany, terrazzo floors, and fixtures date to that era, and the building/space was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
When Prohibition hit, Huber’s didn’t die. It adapted. It became a full-time restaurant, and, according to the Oregon Encyclopedia, “incognito drinks” still flowed, including Manhattans served in coffee cups. Portland has always been Portland.
Ownership stayed remarkably steady, too. Frank Huber’s death eventually led to Jim Louie managing the place, then partnering, then passing the torch to his nephew Andrew Louie, and later to Andrew’s children, including James Kai Louie, who became the long-time manager and helped cement the modern-day Huber’s traditions…