On the solid brick wall to the left hang shelves with weathered journals and ceramic mugs for sale. Folks sit at the bar, facing an impressive collection of liqueurs, tequilas, scotches, and bourbons. A four-point buck’s head is mounted to thick wooden paneling on the right. A foosball table stands towards the rear of The Barn Light, at which four baseball-capped men play an aggressive match.
The Barn Light is situated next to Sizzle Pie on the corner of Broadway and Willamette. The bar-and-coffeeshop opens at 7am on weekdays and 9am on weekends. Closing hours are trickier, with lights-out at 12am Monday through Thursday, 2am on Friday and Saturday, and 10pm on Sunday. Minors are allowed in every day from their opening hours until 10pm. The price of a beer is about $4 to $5; an espresso drink runs from $2.50 to $3.50.
Coffee is one of the choice drinks here. The Barn Light sells an interesting espresso drink: the ‘cortado.’ From the Spanish verb cortar ‘cut,’ the cortado is a shot of espresso cut with a 1:1 ratio of warm milk. The milk lessens the espresso’s usual bitterness without turning it into, say, a small latte.
Advertised on the website as a “downtown staple and destination for young professionals, graduate students, professors, and businessmen and women who appreciate good coffee, beer, and wine,” The Barn Light offers a comfortable space for the people of Eugene to decompress. I would add undergraduate students in that line-up, too, especially considering their minor-friendly hours. During this visit, I finished a fair amount of work before the 10pm cut-off.
What strikes me is the comfort of The Barn Light; it seems comfort is the owners’ intention. In an interview with The Daily Emerald, co-owner Thomas Pettus-Czar declares, “It all goes back to providing a place where folks can come together and feel comfortable coming together whether it’s in a group or by themselves.” This visit, I spent most of the time by myself. But as I walked around taking photos for this post, folks were open to talk. One couple worked on an architecture project together. The four men in the back playing at foosball all shook my hand when I introduced myself, and then waved to me before they left.
The Distracted Duck 