Want the inside scoop on McMenamins’ history? There’s a podcast now for that
Shannon McMenamin knew she needed to get the legacy of her family’s eclectic and expansive Northwest business in some recorded fashion for posterity.
She is the daughter of Mike McMenamin, who with his brother, Brian, created the McMenamins chain of restaurants, pubs, entertainment sites and hotels across Oregon and Washington.
The family business turned 40 this year, sparking an added sense of urgency for Shannon, who helps oversee operations.
That drive to “get that history down,” she says, for the next generation has led to the Red Shed Tapes, the McMenamins’ official podcast.
“My dad is getting quite a bit older now. And he’s such a wonderful storyteller, and we always really like to hear his stories about how things came about in the company,” Shannon said in a recent interview with The News Tribune. “And to have that record, I think it’s just something that will be really nice for the future and future generations.”
The first episode, “Long, Strange Trip,” sets the groundwork for how the business started in the 1980s and essentially explains how the two brothers persevered.
At times, it’s almost reminiscent of old Smothers Brothers comedy routines, their comments interweaving and each quickly finishing the other’s sentences.
“We were really good at making really bad beer,” says Brian in the inaugural podcast.
“We were bumbling idiots,” added Mike.
“But we got better,” they both agreed, explaining that happened after hiring staff who “knew what they were doing.”
Even after they hired brewers, Shannon explained in the podcast, “they still had to convince customers to drink our beers.”
Complaints early on from “regulars” were that “nobody’s going to drink that stuff; you can’t even see through it,” as the brothers recalled, because the customers were used to drinking Budweiser.
No offense to Budweiser, just a different era. The times, luckily for the brothers, changed.
Elks, Old City Hall and Tacoma
The McMenamins’ empire stretches from their home base in the Portland, Oregon, area north through the I-5 corridor and the greater Seattle area.
Among McMenamins’ 56 sites is Tacoma’s historic Elks Temple, which McMenamins rescued from years of neglect and reopened under their brand in April 2019.
“The Elks is such a wonderful property,” Shannon told The News Tribune, quickly adding, “and it was such a colossal wreck. I think that one will be really fun to talk about. We’ll probably end up going into a bunch of different episodes. It could be its own standalone episodes.”
The Elks building “is so fascinating. And how it turned out is just so interesting, it was such a puzzle to put together. And it’s such a maze in there, too,” she said. “The architecture there is so exquisite, and all of the details inside of that building.”
She recalled the early days of the project.
“It was a big mess. I mean, I remember we took a group of our district managers through there to go and check it out,” she said. “Like before, you know, we even started the renovations and we had headlamps on and I mean, there was water running down through the building and graffiti, broken stuff everywhere.”
“So to have it be what it is now feels really like a win, you know, for everybody to have this building back,” she added.
It was no secret that the brothers, for a time, considered taking on Old City Hall, close to the Elks site. It eventually came under contract with local developer Eli Moreno, who recently acquired the nearby Spark Park garage, another legacy downtown property.
“That City Hall there, I was lucky enough to get a tour when we were working on Elks,” she said. “That is such a fun space. We were intrigued by that bell tower and were like, ‘Oh, we could put a bar up here,’” she said, laughing.
Perhaps, then, a segment on the properties that got away?
“There have been a few that got away,” she noted.
“We get phone calls, we get emails, we get listings, things that are sent to us from all over the place, saying, ‘Please come and save this building,’ and you can’t save them all,” she said.
As for any future plans in Tacoma, “We’re still in pandemic recovery a little bit right now,” she said.
“I think we’re just going to try to kind of re-establish where we’re at; just keep on doing what we’re doing and try to build the business as much as we can.”
The family’s excited about future Red Shed interviews, including potentially featuring former Grateful Dead founding member Phil Lesh, as the band “is a big part of our culture,” she noted.
As Shannon describes in the podcast, “My dad always had a cassette holder full of bootlegs of Grateful Dead shows. They were the soundtrack to our early lives. I’ve long been intrigued by these tapes, in the spirit of that bootleg music and how it kind of travels from person to person.”
She hopes the podcast carries a similar vibe, introducing fans to the family and a supporting cast of characters in the business, such as “Thursday Jane.” Jane started with the brothers in the early 1980s and still gives history and art tours today at the Edgefield site.
“We just want to introduce people to the different characters and this world that we’ve built inside of this company,” Shannon said. “It’s so much more than just burgers and fries and beers; so much more than that.”
