A new sports pub opened in downtown Vancouver offering a viewing experience that’s as close as it gets to sitting in the 100-level seating at the Moda Center during a Trail Blazers game, co-owner Joey Ferguson said.
The bar, Penalties Sports Pub, 115 E. Seventh St., is the newest dining establishment to open during the pandemic. Formerly the spot of Renegades Bar and Grill, Penalties was named for its ubiquity through multiple sports, including football, hockey and soccer, Ferguson said. It is open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day.
The pub has been Ferguson’s dream since he got into the industry at age 15, working at the former JB’s Roadhouse, now Billygan’s Roadhouse, as a busboy and dishwasher. He also worked at Outback Steakhouse as a server and bartender, Club 99 in Hazel Dell, Big Al’s as manager and most recently Top Shelf as general manager.
His wife and co-owner of Penalties, Alicia Ferguson, who is a nurse, said it was nerve-wracking to be renovating the pub with the uncertainty of Gov. Jay Inslee’s phase rollbacks looming. But during its opening, the spot has had its available seats nearly or completely full most days. And the restaurant will add furniture, supplies and staff as the phases advance.
“It was a forced soft opening,” she said. “We can grow as we are allowed to have more people in. Hopefully, we can go to 50 percent pretty soon.”
The pub will hold 120 patrons at 100 percent capacity. It has eight large TVs, including two 177-inch screens, and a surround sound system that Joey Ferguson engineered to have similar acoustics to Trail Blazer games, he said.
The pub is 21-and-over, and its specialty food is pizza; the owners get their fresh dough from Sunrise Bagels, Joey Ferguson said. The pub also serves bar food, including nachos, poppers, quesadillas and wings.
The Fergusons did much of the renovations themselves, including painting and framing the jerseys on the wall, which Alicia Ferguson said required “Walmart frames, some double-sided tape and a lot of patience.”
“Everything in there we handpicked, hand built and handmade,” she said. “We wanted it where everywhere you look, you see something cool.”
Joey Ferguson said he’s confident that Penalties will succeed, partly because he has the support of so many other downtown Vancouver restaurant owners, including their friends at Smokin’ Oak who helped with the build-out.
“All of us are really connected downtown,” he said. “All of us are really like a family down here. We all talk to each other, we all support each other.”
This article was updated to state the correct hours of operations of Penalties.
