Brad Paisley played a truck stop in 1998; so, over the years, have Travis Tritt, Keith Urban and Phil Vassar. The Ponderosa Lounge and Grill at 10350 North Vancouver Way is the country-music heart of the Jubitz Travel Center in far North Portland, pouring and two-stepping since 1969 under a name borrowed from the ranch on the TV western Bonanza. The setting is genuinely a trucking empire: Moe Jubitz, a Yale graduate who once fielded offers from the Red Sox and Yankees, founded Fleet Leasing in 1952 and moved it to the North Portland site in 1958, growing a full self-contained travel plaza with diners, a cinema, shops and driver dormitories. The lounge became its crown jewel and, improbably, one of Portland's most durable live-music rooms. When fire destroyed the complex's gift shop and restaurant in 1979, the operation temporarily decamped into the Ponderosa while a new trucker-themed restaurant was built - a measure of how central the bar had become to the business. A seven-month renovation completed in December 2017 produced the current room: a large dance floor, an elevated VIP lounge, two bars and reclaimed-wood decor, with weekly programming of local, regional and national country acts plus occasional rock, blues and Americana. The national guest list has since added Miranda Lambert, Brooks and Dunn, Blake Shelton, Dan and Shay and Michael Ray, and touring stars have used the room for semi-secret after-shows. Weeknights run to line-dancing lessons, cornhole in the VIP loft and cheap-beer promotions; weekends turn the floor into a full swing-dancing hall where the crowd mixes drivers off the interstate with Portlanders making the trip north. The grill side serves a full menu, and the bar's hours track the travel center's long clock - open from morning until well past midnight, because a truck stop never really closes.

Type: Bar / Pub

Address: 10350 N Vancouver Way, Portland, OR, United States, 97217

Telephone: 503-345-0300

Website: https://jubitz.com/ponderosa-lounge-country-bar/

DJ: 1

Opening Date: 01/01/1969

Serves Food