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Spicing Up
The Whit
THE CREW AT NELSON'S IN THE WHIT
NELSON’S IN THE WHIT IS
TAKING OVER A NEIGHBORHOOD
ICONIC BUILDING
By Henry Houston
A
bass and drum beat bumps in the
background at Nelson’s in the Whit,
the newest addition to the Whiteaker’s
neighborhood scene. As the song “Taki
Taki” by DJ Snake plays over the stereo,
customers begin to fill the building that
was once Tiny Tavern six years ago.
The restaurant is busier than it usually is on Monday
nights, and piercing the music and chatter are custom-
ers praising Nelson Lopez on how nice the new restau-
rant looks.
For five years, Lopez has been running a food cart
in the Tiny Tavern parking lot. In November, he moved
into the tavern itself, which is one of the neighborhood’s
historic buildings.
Along with the Whiteaker’s Blair Island area, the Tiny
Tavern building, at 394 Blair Boulevard, is recognized
in the U.S. National Park Service’s National Register of
Historic Places.
Lopez has changed the interior, surprising many
customers who were familiar with the old Tiny Tavern and
didn’t frequent the more upscale Board during its three-
year stint in the building. As he settles into the business,
he says he wants to provide the area with good food, bar
drinks and — soon — a late night venue.
While Lopez isn’t the first occupant to move in since
the tavern known as Tiny’s closed, his brick and mortar
venture is a step toward restoring the presence of Latino-
owned businesses in the neighborhood.
Nelson’s Taqueria, his food cart, is what’s helped him
establish Nelson’s in the Whit. Like other food carts
during the pandemic, he says, the cart was selling a lot
of food, and there was always a line of customers waiting
to place an order. “We were killing it,” he says. “Every day
we’d have so many customers. We did great.”
The success of his food cart and popularity with the
foodie community helped him secure the money to move
into the old Tiny Tavern building.
On the city of Eugene’s 1993 application to nominate
the neighborhood as a historic place, the document says
Lucielle and R.B. Johnson purchased the property in
1945 to convert a farmhouse into the Tiny Tavern. Since
then, the tavern has been a “working man’s tavern,” the
document says.
In 2006, Lucielle Johnson sold the property and busi-
ness to Jeff and Valerie Malos, who still own the property
today, according to Lane County property records. In 2015,
Tiny Tavern closed down, less than a year after Eugene
Weekly reported that Jeff Malos had enlisted a chef to
clean up the bar’s menu and environment.
In 2015, Board Restaurant moved in but closed three
years later according to reddit posts from that time. One
year later, the Dew Drop Inn bar and restaurant opened
but didn’t survive the pandemic.
Life on Blair Island
In November 2021, Nelson’s in the Whit moved in, join-
ing the building’s history of tenants.
Lopez’s move into a brick and mortar located in the
Whit’s Blair Island is a step toward re-establishing Latino-
E U G E N E W E E K LY . C O M
owned businesses in the neighborhood. Blair Island is,
according to the National Register of Historic Places
registration form, the “unusual intersection” of Blair
Boulevard, Van Buren Street and 4th Avenue and as far
south as 5th.
Before becoming executive director of the equity advo-
cacy nonprofit Oregon Just Transition Alliance and a local
activist, Joel Iboa spent some of his childhood growing
up in the Whiteaker neighborhood when there were more
Latino-owned businesses.
Ninkasi’s founding in 2006 led the neighborhood to
change in business makeup, Iboa says. He remembers
attending elementary school with classrooms half-filled
with other Latinx students.
One anchor of the Latino community in the Whit was
the Centro Latino Americano building, which is still there.
Iboa says he remembers going there in December for
posada celebrations, a Latin American Christmas tradi-
tion. The community would do prayers and the adults
would hand out cash and candy to the children, he says.
“I remember the parking lot would get super full,” he says.
JOEL IBOA
“There were a lot of immigrants in the neighborhood,”
Iboa says. Part of the reason his family moved there, he
adds, was because to rent an apartment didn’t require a
lot of rental history and was an affordable place to live.
As the neighborhood experienced gentrification during
the 2000s, there were only three Latinx-owned businesses,
Iboa says. But with Lopez moving into the old Tiny Tavern
building, it’s now five. “For a long time, I was sad that we
were losing some of the Latinx influence that I grew up
with in the ’90s and ’00s, but it feels like we’re getting it
back,” he says.
Lopez will still run his food cart, which he says has a
larger menu and can serve customers breakfast and lunch.
Nelson’s in the Whit, though, has a two-sided dinner menu
and daily and happy hour specials.
Photos by Todd Cooper
He says he’s waiting until spring or summer to be open
for lunch. “I’m trying to be patient,” he adds, mentioning
COVID as a reason for not expanding the menu just yet.
In the meantime, Lopez points to the bar as his money-
maker. Tacos at the cart are $2, he says. “You get one
margarita, it’s $11. You drink three margaritas in one
sitting? That’s more than $30.”
And it’s hard to have just one of Lopez’s margaritas.
Lopez tells me that he and his staff make the margarita
mixes in house every morning. He says his restaurant
makes the best margaritas, and after drinking one, I
think he’s right. The strawberry margarita carries a lot
of flavors — it’s sweet, filled with blended strawberry juice
and tequila along with tart lime.
Lopez says the restaurant’s more popular items are
chile rellenos, enchiladas and carne asada fries.
The enchilada plate is unlike that of any other restau-
rant. Typically, American Mexican restaurants drown
flour tortilla-based enchiladas in a chile or verde sauce.
Nelson’s in the Whit takes a more toned down approach.
His enchiladas feature corn tortillas and are more
sparing on the sauce so it doesn't overwhelm the other
flavors. And that’s good because that approach allows
you to enjoy how tender the chicken is.
Lopez says other restaurants usually have a chicken
broth based enchilada sauce. “I’m trying to have really
good vegan enchilada sauce,” he says. “We put a lot of
seasonings and flavor there. When you try my enchilada
sauce, you taste all the good flavors.”
In the future, Lopez says he wants Nelson’s in the Whit
to be a late night venue that doesn’t just have local bands.
The restaurant’s grand opening featured the electro-
swing band High Step Society, but he says he wants to
bring in a little bit of everything. “I am trying to bring the
comedians. I am trying to bring the drag queen shows,”
he says. “Why not the go-go dancers?”
When customers walk into Nelson’s in the Whit, those
who are familiar with Tiny Tavern’s older history are
surprised to see such a change in interior, Lopez says.
One 2011 Tiny Tavern review on Yelp captures the
former environment of the bar: “Ever wondered what the
gateway to hell looks like?”
Lopez says he altered a lot of things when they moved
into the building, and customers like the change. “Every-
body who comes here has huge expectations. They think,
‘It’s Tiny, it’s ugly,’ how it used to be and how everybody
was scared,” Lopez says.
The neighborhood has appreciated the change, too,
Lopez says. “They feel they are happier here in this build-
ing,” he says “They tell me I belong here and are happy
I’m here.” ■
J A N U A R Y
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