Since opening last November on Bend’s west side, The Commonwealth Pub has made good on its promise to be more than just a watering hole. Built with music in mind, it offers top-notch sound, room to dance and live bands nearly every night of the week. The Commonwealth also boasts big-screen sports, trivia, “Table Tennis Sundays” and open-mic nights, carving out its place as the neighborhood’s unofficial living room. Amid the packed calendar, owner Dan Larsson maintains that his core mission is to provide a gathering space for old friends and new.
the Source: You have live music pretty much every night of the week, plus other events. How is it going?
Dan Larsson: It’s exciting! All this live music has really become the focus, to be a place for local bands and musicians to be able to find a venue with great sound in a great environment.
The place was built to provide fantastic sound and musicians are recognizing that.
One part that has been more of a challenge, in part because we also provide a sound engineer as part of the deal when people play, is that everything costs money. We tried what we called the “voluntary cover charge,” but that hasn’t really worked. So, what we’ve started to do is add a $3 entertainment fee to checks when there is music playing, which will help greatly and make the live shows more sustainable. It’s limited to when there’s music playing, and in the big scheme of things, hoping people understand that’s still pretty cheap for a fantastic listening experience.
tS: Since opening last fall, do you have any particular favorite moments?
DL: Our St. Patty’s Day weekend was crazy. I think we went through 15 kegs of Guiness in two days. Apparently, we were the second biggest seller of Guinness in the state of Oregon. We had Irish bands playing—it was very fun.
tS: What’s special about your neighborhood and the local crowd there?
DL: The location we are at is great. We have visibility being right on Century Drive and what’s kind of cool with all the venues right here, we’re all working together and promoting each other. We really want this to be a place where you can come here for music and sports, then pop into Prost, Flamingo Room or GoodLife. Just last night, Collective Soul was playing at the amphitheater, but we had a phenomenal local act on stage at the pub. Maxwell Friedman, he grew up here and now lives in New York. The place was packed. The place was absolutely packed.
tS: What do you have on the horizon? What are you looking forward to in your second year of business?
DL: We’d like to host more community events, maybe fundraisers, things like that… The sort of the motto is, “the Commonwealth for the common good.” I spent 30 years as an immigration lawyer, and I myself am an immigrant myself from Sweden, so it’s really important to me that this is a safe, welcoming place for everybody. We do things that bring people together, like music and sports. We’re also going to provide more nonalcoholic beverages, mocktails and things like that. Sometimes people say, “I don’t drink.” Well, you don’t have to drink alcohol to be at the pub. This is a place for people to just really be out and socializing. We have more in common than our differences, and that’s what I really want to keep working on.
tS: I’ve been watching the WNBA lately—can I come catch a game there?
DL: Oh yes! We have them on all the time. Right now, we are showing the women’s Euro soccer tournament. We play all kinds of sports every day and look forward to more in the fall with NFL and college football, plus more soccer and basketball.
tS: In an imaginary world where you could book any act—dead or alive—who would it be?
DL: It would have to be Queen.
tS: Yes! I love Queen.
Noon-11pm; Sun., Noon-9pm
This article appears in Source Weekly July 31, 2025.
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