Thy drinkdom come.

Clearly, Portlanders worship the god of brunch. The devotees attending Sunday morning worship at Tin Shed this past weekend must have been so blissed out on the god of hot morning sunshine and endless coffee refills that they failed to care that they would be waiting up to an hour and a half for a table, and then another 45 minutes for food. Or, maybe like church, the devotees accept the long and boring bits in exchange for spiritual enlightenment, here in the form of bloody marys and sausage-gravy-soaked-biscuits. Fair enough, I'm willing to consider it.

Bloody Mary vs Virgin Mary, otherwise known as Tin Shed vs Church. The low-down.

TIN SHED: The bloody mary came in a pint glass, with tons of pickled veg. Spicy. Alcoholic. Served to me in my own glass, and NOT from a communal church chalice which will later result in a sore throat and mild flu-like symptoms because of the sniffling child ahead of me in the communion line-up.
CHURCH: I was raised Methodist, so we were served Safeway brand grape juice from concentrate. No wine. Although, I suspect that wine used for communion generally tends toward the economy version, with less attention paid to whether there are subtle notes of vanilla, cherry, and unicorn breath.

TIN SHED: Dogs are apparently allowed-- no, scratch that, ENCOURAGED at Tin Shed Sunday morning worship, as evidenced by the all the dogs lounging, sniffing, begging, and snarling underfoot.
CHURCH: Children seem to be the accessory of choice at most churches, rather than dogs. Sniffling children, especially.

TIN SHED: Eggs benedict (very, very good), crazy huge breakfast burritos (also very good), biscuits and gravy (the biscuits were light and doughy, the gravy was thick and meaty), and more. At reasonable prices.
CHURCH: Salads made from jello, whipped cream, and pistachios. Casseroles with tuna, some sort of unmemorable and/or unidentifiable cheese. Free if you stay for the evening program afterwards.

TIN SHED: You, sharing your table with your friends and/or family, and some delightful old guy in rainbow suspenders who came out to brunch alone.
CHURCH: You, sharing your pew with your family, and lots of old guys (the likelihood of rainbow suspenders is low). And more sniffling children.

TIN SHED: Delicious coffee. Served before, during, and after the worship service (by which I'm referring to your plate of food).
CHURCH: Coffee only if you stick around until the end of the service, and only after you shake hands with the pastor on your way out of the chapel. The quality of the coffee depends on whose turn it was to buy the beans that week.

TIN SHED: Facebook message circulating detailing the night manager's predilection for confusing all black patrons with gangbangers, then offering cookies as a reparations.

CHURCH: Institution-wide cover-ups to protect pedophiles whilst calling homosexuality "deviant behavior".

TIN SHED: Little in the way of soul salvation, but big in the way of soul food.
CHURCH: Possible grace, redemption, mercy, everlasting peace and other related states of being.

Um, so I think Tin Shed wins it for me this time, but I can't say I'm going to be a weekly follower of this particular Alberta street religion. I'm more of a once-a-year believer, like our polite neighbors to the north (Hi, Canada! Keep up the good work on maintaining your actual separation of church and state! We haven't been so good at that down here lately.) I'm just not good at organized religion, I guess.