Love belting out a favorite tune, but not in front of strangers in a bar? Have no fear. Karaoke revelers and newbies alike can enjoy all the feels of warbling behind a mic with none of the judgement at the Box Factory’s new Bend The Mic private-room karaoke lounge.
“I have this fear of public singing, but once I went into a private room, I realized, ‘Oh my gosh, this is way more fun than I thought it would be,’” said Lara Myers, 44, who co-owns the new hot spot with close friend Gretchen Orca Tucker. “You can just let loose, and it’s a way to relax and de-stress.”
Tucker latched onto the idea two years ago after she and her partner, Matt Tucker, took their children, now ages 8 and 10, to Portland, where they visited a private-room karaoke lounge.
Credit: Dallas Finn Calvert
“I saw my kids just light up and realized, ‘Gosh, this is an all-ages thing that we don’t have in Bend,’” said Tucker, 46. She pondered the idea of opening a similar karaoke spot, and then enlisted Myers to partner up. The two women have know each other for more than two decades, since both lived in San Diego, California.
Bend The Mic features six individually decorated, themed rooms that have screens, speakers, the requisite microphones and a playlist featuring more than 100,000 songs, including perennial favorites “Sweet Caroline” and “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” not to mention lots of Disney tunes for young and old alike. Tucker said a room’s playlist can be tweaked “with the press of a button” to ensure it’s kid-friendly, and the “fun, integrated experience” also enables people to control the intensity, color and cadence of a room’s lights, and toggle voice-modulation options and effects. Each room has a scannable QR code so people can order food and drinks, with an emphasis on Central Oregon fvendors with some far-flung specialties in the mix.
“It’s a combination of hyper local and then imported from Asia,” said Tucker, adding that Bend beers and whiskeys, and Japanese whiskeys and sake, are a focus, but there’s also a full bar and batched cocktails from Bend’s Five Miles Provisions. If people are hungry, there’s pizza from Blind Tiger and small plates from Yokocho Izakaya, both Bend restaurants.
The Neon Tokyo is the spot’s largest lounge and fits up to 20 people. Other themed rooms include High Desert: Smith Rock at Sunset, Underwater, Ski Lodge and Disco Jungle rooms. The three medium rooms hold up to 10 people comfortably, while the two small rooms accommodate between two and four singers.
“This is truly a collaboration of a lot of old friends and women friends. It’s been very fun in that sense,” said Tucker, who enlisted one such friend, San Diego muralist Carly Ealey, to hand-paint four of the lounges and the bathrooms, with help from Ealey’s partner, Christopher Konecki. Ealey also created a special Lucky Cat mural that adorns the walls.
Myers and Tucker also plan to spotlight the work of local artists on a three-month rotation, to support the community that they both now call home, after “moving up the coast with each other over the last 25 years in a kind of accidental but also intentional way,” Tucker said. Currently, the karaoke lounge showcases the work of Kimberley Yeager, a Bend artist known as KEY who recently created a piece as a Silver Rail Elementary School fundraiser. Yeager’s print, recently on the cover of the Source, has raised more than $25,000.
Popular in other parts of the world, including Korea and the Philippines, Tucker said most major metropolitan areas have private-room karaoke lounges, such as the one her children discovered in Portland. The development and opening of Bend The Mic has been a family affair. The two women’s children have been instrumental in helping conceive the room themes and food choices and are regulars in the lounges. Myers and her husband, Chad Myers, have two children, ages 12 and 14.
“This has become a second home for them,” Tucker said. “They were the inspiration for this, and they’re joy of private karaoke rooms was really the thing that planted the idea. They love being here, they love singing and they love bringing their friends in.”
Meanwhile, Matt Tucker, who has a Portland-based hydronic HVAC startup, helped build out Bend The Mic’s tech and lighting systems, while Chad Myers, a real estate agent and general contractor, was “integral in the final days of just getting us up and ready,” Tucker said. “They’ve been so supportive, and I think they’re really proud of us.”
Bend The Mic opened Oct. 28 and already is booking rooms and parties. The owners plan to offer the option to book out the lounge during non-business hours, too, and potentially host “Kids’ Night Out” events where parents or guardians can enjoy drinks and food in the main area while their kids belt out tunes in one of the private rooms. Walk ins are welcome, although booking online is the best way to ensure a room is available. Prices vary depending on the time and duration of a singing session.
Bend The Mic private-room karaoke lounge
Wed-Thu 3-11pm, Fri 3pm-Midnight, Sat 11am-Midnight, Sun 11am-10pm
50 SW Bond St., #3, Bend
bendthemic.com/
Varies by lounge size and length of time you want to sing!
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