‘An anchor’: Oakshire fans celebrate, grieve as business prepares to shut down

For Geovanna Rodriguez, Oakshire Public House was where she and her husband met their closest Eugene friends not long after moving to the city. 

For Pam and Bob Hess, it was a place to safely socialize and hear live music during the COVID-19 pandemic, just a 10-minute walk from their house (five if you walk fast, Bob said).

For Faliesha Dawne, it was the workplace where she found her footing as a new mom.

A week after Oakshire Brewing announced the closure of its taprooms and brewery, Madison Street was packed for the brewery’s annual block party. Hundreds of patrons, former employees, neighbors, friends and suppliers came Saturday, Oct. 3, to celebrate and mourn the end of Oakshire as Eugene knows it.

“I’m really sad,” Rodriguez said. “I really do feel like it was kind of this institution for Eugene.”

The last hoorah gave the brewery’s fans a place to gather — something the brewing company has done since it started 20 years ago. While the 13-year-old Public House location will likely stay open under different operators, what the establishment will look like is uncertain.

Relationships formed over local pints

Rodriguez supervised, beer in hand, as her 2-year-old attempted to climb through a cornhole board. It was one of the numerous outdoor games at the block party.

“You’re going to get stuck there, bud,” she said.

Rodriguez has been coming to Oakshire Public House since she and her husband moved to Eugene in 2019. They met a friend, now her son’s godfather, at Oakshire, just by striking up a conversation. The couple would then join the man’s kickball team where they met many other now-close friends. When COVID hit soon after, it continued to be a place where they socialized.

“It was really kind of like an anchor,” Rodriguez said. “We were able to still gather outside, and have some semblance of normalcy during COVID, which was really nice.”

Dawne also made lifelong friends at 207 Madison St., but on the other side of the counter. An employee of Oakshire Public House from 2014-17, Dawne was a new mom when she started. The crew members she worked with became her best friends.

“It just felt like I was working in someone’s backyard ranch brewery or something,” she said. “It just felt like family.”

She remembers having long, bonding conversations there with her now-husband, who would get off his shift at a different brewery and come to Oakshire to unwind. It was also where she got the phone call that her offer on her first house was accepted.

“It was a big transitional point for me for relationships, life, really growing up and finding my own path,” she said. “Oakshire was kind of like the anchor point of helping me along, helping me find good people in my life.”

A Eugene beer company

Kraig Erickson stood at a table Saturday evening with his family, enjoying a beer. He was in town to visit his daughter, a second-year student at University of Oregon, but was at Oakshire to see an old friend.

Erickson met Oakshire founder and CEO Jeff Althouse in Eugene in 2004 when the brewery was still just an idea. Their core group of buddies would get together to play cards and drink beer. When Althouse got the idea to start a brewery, Erickson and the rest of the crew were psyched. 

The company’s original name was Willamette Brewing. Erickson remembers their friend group doing early marketing before the brand existed.

“We would just be out to dinner, and we would be like, ‘Hey, do you have Willamette on tap?’ and the waitress would be like, ‘I don’t know, let me go check,’” Erickson said.

When the waitress inevitably came back confused, the group would make the pitch, “You should really get it. It’s fantastic.”

After Althouse started the brewery in 2006, Erickson and others would go to each local bar that carried the beer and buy it to create demand.

Erickson moved away from Eugene shortly after Oakshire took off and hadn’t seen Althouse in 15 years. Amid the many other reunions that evening, he and Althouse embraced.

“You were here at the beginning, and you’re here at the end,” Althouse said.

Transitioning the Public House to a different company

Oakshire has already closed its Portland and Springfield locations, but Althouse hasn’t set a closing date for Oakshire Public House in Eugene.

The company, in a statement, blamed the closures on “rising costs, increasing competition, the financial damage of COVID, and changes in how people gather to eat and drink.”

Though he couldn’t get into specifics Saturday evening, Althouse said multiple companies are interested in taking over the Public House location, which he hopes will remain a “third place” for people to gather. Oakshire rents the space but has been working with the owner and the food trucks operating there to make the transition as smooth as possible.

“My feeling is that in-person meeting is coming back, and my expectation is that somebody’s going to pick up this location and that we’ll facilitate that transition,” he said.

Althouse said Oakshire will likely make an announcement about the company taking over the Madison Street location in a couple of weeks, and help them transition over the next couple months, as they get licensed and established. Ideally, the company will employ the Public House’s current staff, he said.

Althouse said he can’t say whether that new company will be a brewery, but said Oakshire will continue to brew beer at their production brewery facility in northwest Eugene, for now. The Oakshire brand may continue even as the company shuts down.

“We want to keep serving this taproom and serving our wholesalers during this transition period while the future of the Oakshire brand is being worked out,” Althouse said.

Though he’s excited for his future endeavors in business consulting and traveling with his wife, the gathering Saturday was nostalgic for Althouse. He addressed the crowd in a goodbye speech, asking them to keep coming to the Public House through the transition.

“Keep showing up,” he said. “Show up for our staff, for the food cards, show up for each other. Show for this place, like you have today, wow, because places like this only exist when people choose to be a part of them.”