Henry's 12th street tavern in Portland is opening a second location in Seattle potentially as early as September. I've never been but I've heard good things. Portland BA's, should we be excited about this? Anywhere that has something like 90+ taps sounds pretty intriguing! http://www.washingtonbeerblog.com/whos-on-first-henrys-on-first/
A decent happy hour menu, some solid guest taps but an otherwise sterile, chain/corporate vibe dominates the rest of the facility here. Would be a total winner in most cities, but suffers in PDX by comparo to the competition locally. I worked in downtown Seattle for almost 20 years and regard this as great news for a place that earlier had to rely on Gordon Biersch, Rock Bottom, Pike and Elephant and Castle for far too long.
I visited the Portland location once and have no desire to repeat. Cavernous, impersonal, poor service. Doesn't come close to measure up to the competition in Portland. This location in SoDo might work to its advantage. If it tried to locate in Fremont or Ballard, it would be toast.
I think Henry's is a lot like the taphouse grill in Seattle. If you like the taphouse, you'll probably like Henry's. Otherwise you probably won't be too excited.
That's my take as well Hannont (and Ramnuts). Henry's isn't my cup of tea, but I don't think it's all that bad. Service can be hit and miss, but the few times I've visited, I was always able to find something interesting on the extensive beer list. Granted, most of the list is made up of the "usual suspects" in the craft beer world, but typically they have a strong ale, DIPA or RIS that I can tolerate. As Ramnuts pointed, Henry's biggest problem is that it's located in Portland, where there are so many other interesting places to visit. Depending upon where the new Henry's is located in Seattle, I could see it doing very well there.
I would go to Henry's for a solid lunch or dinner, not anything special. If I found something good on tap I considered it a bonus. I went there more often when I first moved to Portland because I was single and it always was a target rich environment.
I think Henry's has become a victim of it's location. After Greek Cusina and a couple other notable meat market bars in the Pearl went out of business, Henry's apparently became the default place for people in the neighborhood to "see and be seen." The food is good, and the beer list is solid, but every time I go there it seems like a large portion of the clientele is wearing too much cologne/perfume and sipping on cocktails rather than exploring the 90+ taps. I usually make a point of hitting them up before shows at the Crystal, but otherwise I don't make it there very often because the Brass, Belmont Station, Hawthorne Hop House, and about 30 other bars are within walking distance of my house.
Honestly, I think Henry's has a decent selection for a "regular" bar. In another city I would think it is pretty good. But Portland is so spoiled with exceptional places to drink that there's really no appeal. I used to go there when i first moved to Portland. Since then, both Deschutes and Bailey's Taproom have opened up which pretty much makes Henry's obsolete from a beer perspective. It's still not a bad place if you are forced to take some "normal people" (e.g. not beer nerds) to some swanky place but still want to drink something half-way decent.
