‘Hip Chicks do Wine’ asks for community support after ‘very tough’ year

“Hip Chicks do Wine” has been a staple of Southeast Portland since 1999. Now its owners, Laurie Lewis and Renee Neely, say they’ve been “struggling” to keep the doors open since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It has been a very tough 2024, and we are way under in walk-in sales and traffic. And we could use a little bit of community support,” Lewis said. “And it’s not just us. It’s small businesses throughout the Portland metro area. It is wineries across Oregon. COVID-19 hit us hard. All the closures hit hard. As much local support as we had during all those pandemic closures, it kinda felt like once all the businesses opened up, a lot of that local support kind of dried up.”

The owners said they’ve now launched a GoFundMe account with the goal of raising $10,000, just to help support the “day-to-day operations” of Portland’s oldest urban winery, at 4510 S.E. 23rd Avenue, just off Holgate Boulevard, in the Brooklyn neigfhborhood. (Lewis is a leader in the Greater Brooklyn Business Association.) If you’d like to contribute, here’s the webpage to go to – https://tinyurl.com/3y43wyf3