The Paper Tiger, a long-gone strip club at 1196 South Santa Fe Drive (the property is now for sale for just under $1.5 million), lives on in Portland, Oregon, where Darren Polak mixes up a popular cocktail known as the Paper Tiger.
Polak grew up in the Denver area, and remembers passing by the Paper Tiger while heading to Breakfast King after a night of partying. It was always a place that we were afraid to go, he confesses. But one day he and some buddies ventured inside, and were pleasantly surprised by the cheap drinks they found there.
And he always liked the name. So when Portland s Tulip Shop Tavern started concocting some new drinks that it s been canning during the pandemic, Polak came up with one that he dubbed the Paper Tiger.
Darren Polak grew up in Denver, and admits to occasionally visited the sagging strip club at 1196 South Santa Fe Drive that started out as the Paper Tiger, then in 2005 became Maxim, when the steak special on the sign out front was replaced by Girls and Grub though the giant Paper Tiger sign remained above the bar. But by the time Polak bellied up to that bar, the Maxim name had disappeared, too, after a trademark tiff, and the venue was operating with no name at all beyond Show Club.
Polak still thought of it as the Paper Tiger when he first got brave enough to visit the spot with some friends. They d passed it while heading to Breakfast King after a night of partying, and it was always a place that we were afraid to go, he confesses. But when a buddy moved into an apartment at Mississippi and Broadway, they realized that Denver s worst strip club was the closest bar.
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Drink Mobile: Tulip Shop Tavern’s Best Cocktail Is Inspired by the Worst Strip Club in Denver Tulip Shop’s menu of to-go cocktails offers pretty much every classic concoction you can think of, each coming in a canister about the size of a Red Bull. But you’re not wrong if you end up selecting the Paper Tiger based on name alone. Updated April 4 Months before Oregon legalized cocktails to go, Tyler Treadwell had a hunch and placed a bet.