Let’s get the argument out of the way. There is no sand here. 7 Devils Waterfront Alehouse sits on an estuary, not a beach, and if that disqualifies it in your book I understand, and I’ll see you down in Bandon. But the water is close enough to hit with a coaster, every table in the building faces it, and the food was good enough that I ate here twice on the same trip. I don’t do that. Rules bend.
The Full Story
First, the name. In 1889 a surveyor named George Davidson was cataloging this coastline for the government’s Coast Pilot and reached the stretch south of Cape Arago: dense forest, thick underbrush, and one deep ravine after another running straight down to the shore. He noted that locals already had a name for the whole miserable business. They called it the Seven Devils. The road still carries it. So does the brewery.
Second, the water. This is Coos Bay, which is not an inlet and not a lagoon but an estuary, twelve miles of tidal water where the Coos River meets the Pacific, two miles across at its widest, and the largest estuary sitting entirely inside Oregon’s state lines. The open ocean is out past the North Spit, a good ways west. What you get here instead is working water: fishing boats, tugs, tidal flats going bare and filling again, and the occasional ship bound for the deepwater port, all of it sliding past the glass while you eat.
7 Devils has been brewing in this town since 2013, out of their original pub on South 2nd Street. They opened this waterfront room in 2021, once they had the reputation to fill it, and they clearly spent the money in the right places. Two levels, each with its own full bar. The art on the walls came from Coos Bay artists, the dishware from local potters, the furniture from local builders. Somebody made deliberate choices in that building instead of ordering a shipping container of nautical decor.
The beer is why you sit down. Groundswell IPA, Arago Amber, Endless Summer Blonde, Stanton Street Lager. Coastal names on coastal beer, and they earn it. The tap list rotates, so don’t get attached.
The kitchen is why you stay. Fish and chips built on line-caught rock fish landed at Charleston, a short drive west of here, beer-battered and fried, and they will not substitute a thing on that plate because they don’t need to. They grind their own beef in house. The albacore comes off Charleston boats too. They’re a certified Ocean Friendly Restaurant, which tells you somebody in that building actually thinks about where the food comes from.
And the bartenders close it out. Fast, funny, and generous with an honest answer when you ask what’s good. Nobody recited a script at me.
Insider Tips
There are two 7 Devils locations in Coos Bay and only one of them is on the water. Punch “7 Devils Brewing” into your phone and there’s a fair chance it routes you to the original brewpub at 247 S. 2nd Street, which is a perfectly good place to drink and has no view whatsoever. You want 1240 N. Bayshore Drive. Check the address before you turn.
They’re closed Mondays. Plan around it, because there is nothing sadder than driving the 101 for a beer that isn’t pouring.
Two floors, two full bars. If the downstairs bar is three deep, go up. Most people don’t think to.
They run a waitlist online, and on a summer evening it’s worth putting your name in before you’re standing in the doorway.
Beach Bar Bum’s Prime Seat
Upstairs, at the glass, facing the water. The second floor buys you enough elevation to see out over the tidal flats and down the channel, which the ground floor doesn’t quite give you.
One orientation note nobody tells you: the water is off the east side of the building and the ridge is at your back. This is not a sunset-over-the-water bar. What you get instead, if you time it for the last hour of light, is the sun dropping behind you and setting the far shore on fire while the channel goes to glass. Different trick, same payoff. Order the next round before it starts.
