On Saturday night, Harvey’s Comedy Club gave its final show in Old Town Portland.
The club, owned by Barry Kolin, opened in 1979 as Harvey’s Restaurant and Lounge. In 1992, Kolin transitioned it into a comedy club.
Originally, Kolin billed Harvey’s as a “clean” comedy club.
Some acts, notably Louis C.K., chafed against that requirement.
“Comics hate when someone puts some parameters on their act,” Kolin told The Oregonian in 2015, after Louis C.K. insulted Harvey’s in an email to fans. “I didn’t know! I was brand new to the comedy business.”
Harvey’s has hosted big names and up-and-comers through the years, like Louis C.K. and Amy Schumer. But they also supported the burgeoning comedy scene in Portland.
Susan Rice, a comedian who started her stand-up career in Portland in 1983, said the shuttering of Harvey’s is a loss for the Portland comedy scene.
“Harvey’s closing has a huge impact on the life of comedy in Portland,” she said. “It’s the end of an era and takes away a really valuable learning tool for the new young comedians.”
The closing of the club is also a personal hit for Rice, who considers Harvey’s her comedy home.
“I just lost my home club,” she said. “I learned my craft on that stage.”
“Comics have mixed feelings about Harvey’s, but it was always a good paycheck and a good workout room and I enjoyed Barry’s loving but grumpy uncle vibe,” comedian Amy Miller, who left Portland for Los Angeles in 2016, said Tuesday. “If jokes did well at Harvey’s, I knew I could use them anywhere.”
“It’s also the only place I ever saw two different table fires, and a person leave on a stretcher, and the show kept going,” Miller said.
Still, Kolin hopes that someone else reopens the club in some capacity.
“It’s time to pass the baton to some young people,” Kolin told KOIN. “They can come in with some different ideas maybe, but keep the core of what Harvey’s is about the same.”
