It was 2005 when Kyle Stone-Chilla carried pickle jars stuffed with change to an OnPoint Community Credit Union in Portland, hoping to scrape up enough to throw his McMenamins Rams Head pub staff a killer party.

About $1,600 later, the 13-person crew partied hard in the small northwest Portland pub, housed in the historic Campbell Building.

“People looked at me very strangely as I lugged these giant pickle jars of quarters,” Stone-Chilla described of his journey to OnPoint.

Stone-Chilla is the former manager of the soon-to-be-closed McMenamins Rams Head pub on Northwest Hoyt Street from about 2005 to 2010. McMenamins announced the closure in an Instagram and Facebook post in mid-February, noting it would not be renewing the lease.

A lot of customers tell Stone-Chilla they’re rushing to get in a final Rams Head meal because it was their first date with their now spouse.

Stone-Chilla’s history with the brand dates back to growing up in Eugene, with his first-time pub experience being at McMenamins High Street Brewery & Cafe.

“It was actually my first legal drink,” Stone-Chilla said.

His parents later headed to Portland, introducing him to the McMenamins Edgefield location in Troutdale. Stone-Chilla said his dad then ended up working at the McMenamins Hotel Cellar Bar in McMinnville.

“He used to fill up jars of Terminator and I’d make Terminator milkshakes at home,” Stone-Chilla said, referring to the brand’s rich, chocolatey stout beer.

When he moved to Portland, he was laid off from his first job, leaving him in an eight-month stint of collecting unemployment checks for a hundred dollars per week.

Finally, he scored a position as a pub staff member at McMenamins Edgefield. He stuck with the role for a few years before being promoted to shift lead, and then followed his head manager to McMenamins White Eagle Saloon & Hotel in north Portland.

When he first landed at McMenamins Rams Head — nobody wanted to fill the then manager’s role, who left for a medial injury — they were still using the old school cash registers and smoking was allowed in the bar.

Stone-Chilla describes the Rams Head ambience as intimate, which is an appeal most other McMenamins locations don’t have. But, he also describes it as “like a little British pub.”

“It’s a great place for a date. It’s one of the few pubs in town that would probably be the one I would take somebody there for Valentine’s dinner,” Stone-Chilla said.

The space’s quaint size allowed him to learn the locals, including the “probably now my age,” BMX-loving customers who’d hang around.

Stone-Chilla lived through a phase of Rams Head remodeling, which opened up the building’s back room. He remembers gutting the place of its décor and plants to bring in new items.

“There was this little, teeny, 2-foot-tall palm they were going to throw out completely, so I took it home and it’s still alive,” Stone-Chilla said.

The palm, more than a decade later, stands about 5 feet tall.

He remembers closing around 10 p.m. on a Saturday night, pulling everything out of the restaurant, and reopening by 11 a.m. the following Friday.

“We were throwing shelves up still at 10:55 a.m.” he described.

These phases are why Stone-Chilla thinks people are the most sad because the regulars kept coming back through them all.

Stone-Chilla, who’s been the McMenamins 23rd Avenue Bottle Shop manager for more than a decade now, said his general manager knew he used to manage Rams Head, so he gave him an early heads up on its closure.

“It’s sad, but I also think that it might be time in some ways,” Stone-Chilla said.

The Nob Hill neighborhood boasts a number of pubs, bars, good places to grab some grub and a brew, including McMenamins Tavern & Pool and Blue Moon Tavern & Grill locations each a few blocks away.

“My hope is that somebody can walk into that space and turn it into something cool,” Stone-Chilla said.

Giving a nod to not only the restaurant’s history, having called this location its home for 35 years, but also to the Campbell Building’s history would be most ideal, according to Stone-Chilla.

A rock band member, Stone-Chilla played various McMenamins locations for about a decade, furthering his ties to the brand.

And though he adored the Rams Head pub, he said the White Eagle Saloon & Hotel is his “white whale.”

“The White Eagle was probably the spot where my heart is most fond of just because I played so many shows there,” Stone-Chilla said. “I used to refer to it as my white whale because I always kind of wanted to be manager there; it never happened.”

For now, he’s ironically drinking less beer than he used to before becoming a bottle shop manager.