Evan Arnold Goes to Port Costa: The Warehouse

Above is a picture of what you see when you first walk into The Warehouse.

The Warehouse was extremely old with open ceilings and beams running everywhere. Random knick-knacks were to be found everywhere and it was a fairly large place. Humor obviously ran through this bar as the female restroom read on the door "Please Wait to be Seated". The first thing you see when you walk in is the giant polar bear behind glass. Who has a stuffed polar bear these days? That is, besides The Warehouse. The picture above is of The warehouse. To the left is the actual bar, and directly in front is seating for the cafe portion. An older lady was working the bar, and the place was empty. I said hello and told her what I was doing and she told me a little about The Warehouse. Her name was Helen and she was one of the bartenders.

What Helen told me was that The Warehouse was was built in 1886, making it 124 years old. She also told me two extremely interesting things about the bar. This bar, although very much tucked away from society, offers o variety of over 450 beers. That's right, four hundred and fifty. The list is pictured to the left, and this attribute is what makes this bar so well known. It is currently a big biker bar, and it isn't uncommon to see Harley's parked outside of this rough looking place. Helen then pointed me over to a hanging laminated magazine article, which was a cover and article from Men's Journal, January 2003. The article read "The 50 Best Bars in America", and sure enough, The Warehouse of Port Costa, California was on that list. To be honest, I was completely impressed. Port Costa, although a town of a population of 232, was definitely on the map. I know, totally crazy.

Helen then handed me a book hanging from the rafters by a bent coat hanger called "Port Costa", which was the complete history of this town. I thumbed through the pages, looking at old pictures and Helen would answer any question I had. The book was really interesting, and I got to learn cool facts like how Angelo Coppa, Port Costa's Mayor of 1968 was also the town barber. I got to learn that Port Costa started as a 4,000 acre ranch owned by William Piper, and the Ranch house still stands as the Port Costa Mercantile. I also learned that Port Costa Brick Co. used modified tractors to load and unload bricks. And most interesting to me, the Burlington Hotel used to be a brothel. This explained why The Burlington didn't have room numbers, but room "names". The name of each room was named after the prostitute that used to work in it, or as the book put it, call it "home".