Following years of extensive renovations under new owners, the former Greek Cusina restaurant building will reopen next year as a music venue and jazz club.
Chris Pfeifer with 404 Entertainment is leasing the bottom two floors of the historic building at the corner of Southwest Fourth and Washington in downtown Portland.
Upstairs will be a concert space called 400, named for the building’s address. The basement will house a speakeasy-style jazz club called Corbitt & Macleay, named for two early Portland merchants who specialized in shipping alcohol.
These will be the first ventures to open in the space since Greek Cusina closed there in 2010. The restaurant was famous for a giant, purple inflatable octopus that sat above the entrance – and infamous for the owner’s ongoing issues with fire code violations.
In this file photo from 2010, Ted Papas, right, owner of the Greek Cusina, was taking some video of his closed restaurant when a couple passed him and told them how much they loved the place.Benjamin Brink/ The Oregonian
“The stories are not an exaggeration,” said Pfeifer, who went to shows at the Greek Cusina during its heyday in the 1990s. “You would just have extension cords plugged into power strips that were plugged into another power strip. … Plates were thrown, ouzo was flowing. It was crazy, but there were some amazing shows in that space.”
Pfeifer hopes his new venues will add to the sense of revival in a part of town that’s home to Kelly’s Olympian and Jack London Revue.
“We’re trying to create this music block where people can come down to that corner and have the opportunity to go to three or four different music venues,” he said.
It’s also across from the unused (and unusually shaped) Washington Center building, which got a reputation as an open air drug market during the height of the pandemic. Since then, fencing has gone up around the space, police have cracked down on activity there, and Pfeifer is optimistic for the area’s future.
“Maybe this is the thing that pushes someone else who’s thinking about developing (in that area) over the edge,” he said. “’Hey, if they’re doing it, we’re doing it.’”
The upstairs 400 venue will have capacity for about 200 people, while Corbitt & Macleay will have about 100 seats. The basement speakeasy space will be about twice the size of The 1905, Pfeifer’s other jazz club just off Mississippi Avenue.
When 1905 abruptly closed last November, Pfeifer stepped in and reopened the business in April.
Pfeifer’s other previous nightclub experience was as a partner in the Barrel Room in Portland’s Old Town. There, he saw the power of strength in numbers.
“Coming from Old Town, I was really used to the fact that you had 40 bars,” Pfeifer said. “The whole point of what happened in Old Town during that time was to create this kind of hospitality district that you would find in Austin or Vancouver, B.C. or Nashville.”
Seattle-based Columbia Pacific Advisors purchased the five-story building at 404 S.W. Washington St. in 2023 and began major renovations. The company told the Portland Business Journal that the top floors could find use as space for artists or musicians, though there are not yet any confirmed tenants.
Pfeifer hopes to have 400 and Corbitt & Macleay up and running next spring.
— Samantha Swindler covers features for The Oregonian/OregonLive and Here is Oregon. Reach her at sswindler@oregonian.com.
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