Portland’s Best Happy Hours | Portland Monthly
Catfish sliders at $6 a piece are among the many highlights of Tiny Bubble Room’s happy hour.
Maybe it’s that the City of Roses tends to turn in on the early side, compared to other cities. Maybe it’s the fact Portlanders love catching the elusive winter sun before it gets dark, or soaking it up for hours on a summery patio. Maybe it’s just an excuse to knock back discounted drinks for a post-work hang with friends. Whatever the case, Portland’s happy hour scene continues to thrive at cocktail lounges, buzzy natural wine bars, and neighborhood haunts packed with regulars. Sometimes that looks like a flat discount on draft beers and well drinks, while other times it’s a specialized menu just for the limited hours. And since the city’s drink scene is so intrinsically tied to its culinary world, Portland restaurants also like to get in on the action, offering dishes and drinks on special and inviting diners to try menus at a discount. We’ve rounded up 10 of the city’s top happy hours, with an eye toward availability, price, and quality. Find them below.
Grilled cheese, tomato soup, and the Belmont Jewel have been an Aalto Lounge staple for years.
Aalto Lounge
Sunnyside
When it opened in 2000, Aalto Lounge helped define SE Belmont’s bar scene. Twenty-five years later, the bar still boasts late night DJs, chic Scandinavian design, and a happy hour that is nothing shy of legendary. Customers mob the modish dining room and enclosed back patio for the same three cocktail specials the bar has served for more than a decade, now $5 a piece: the refreshingly peppery Slow Burn with vodka, pineapple, and habanero; the garden-fresh Dandy with cucumber gin and lavender simple syrup; and the juicy Belmont Jewel, essentially a whiskey sour with grenadine. Happy hour runs from 5 to 7pm daily (except on Sundays when the bar is closed), and other specials include $5 drafts, $15 bottles of wine, a $5 warm pretzel with cheese sauce, and an immaculately gooey grilled cheese with a rich tomato soup for $7.
Bar Maven
foster-powell
Residents of the Foster-Powell neighborhood have long known about this laidback, friendly gastropub with a Mediterranean-tinged menu and an expansive happy hour. An assortment of bar snacks and entrees run from $7 to $11, including steak or chicken skewers with hummus and pita, crispy fried brussels sprouts, sweet potato fries with a tangy beet-pomegranate ketchup, vegan chicken nuggets, and a half-pound burger draped with American cheese. For drinks, find an array of classic cocktails for $7, well drinks for $4, and a $1 off draft beers. You can enjoy it all in the cozy dining room or out on the fenced patio daily from 4 to 7pm and again from 10pm to 1:30am, or all-day on Sunday and Monday.
Campana is one of Portland’s top spots for Italian food.
Campana
woodlawn
Beyond the cheap drinks and excuse to duck out of work early, happy hours can be a (relatively) affordable way to check out a particularly buzzy restaurant. And the stylish Campana, which appears on our list of the city’s 50 best restaurants, serves one of the city’s strongest happy hours that can double as dinner. While the restaurant’s main menu features seasonally shifting handmade pastas and risottos, all pushing $30, happy hour keeps things classic, with bowls of cacio e pepe, penne alla vodka, and penne amatriciana all priced at $17. Start with an $11 Caesar complemented with quintessential Italian cocktails like Negronis and Aperol spritzes for the same price; glasses of house wine are $10. You can find these specials from 5 to 6pm weekdays and 4 to 5pm weekends in the dining room under the flamingo wallpaper; if you sit at the bar, you can enjoy them all night.
Gol brings in soccer fans from all over town.
Gol
buckman
Soccer hooligans flock to this SE Portland sports bar to catch games, and the time difference means the bar sometimes opens at very unconventional hours. Luckily, that usually means happy hours are comparatively light on crowds, so you can sneak in and grab draft pours, shot and beer combos, and well drinks for $5 each. For food, it’s similarly straightforward, ranging from $2 tacos to a $7 chicken Caesar salad—nothing mind-blowing, but just what you want to snack on alongside a boilermaker and a game of footy.
Jake’s Grill
downtown
A bona fide Portland institution, the downtown centenarian Jake’s Grill drips with old-school charm. Servers still wears suits, the interior decor is comfortingly vintage, and while downtown traffic has slowed since the pandemic, office workers and families still pack the window-lined space at lunch for seafood pastas and bay shrimp salads. Happy hour, 3 to 6pm daily at the bar, provides a fun, wallet-friendly way to visit this iconic restaurant, with an arm-length menu of items like $9 crawfish corn fritters and $11 steak bites, plus $13 Dungeness crab and lobster dip. For drinks, knock back $6 well cocktails or peruse the list of rotating cocktail specials under $10.
Kay’s Bar
sellwood-moreland
Kay’s happy hour regulars are as much of a part of the bar as its 70s decor and abundance of tufted leather. On weekdays from 4 to 6pm, you can find them crowded into the booths to share $7 nachos and massive platters of fries for $3. Other customers perch on the bar stools to knock back $5 well drinks, draft beers, and house wines alongside $5 quarter-pound cheeseburgers and $9 vegan burgers. Kay’s pays special attention to its stalwart fans, so newcomers might not be greeted as warmly as they’re used to; if it’s your scene, you’ll reach first-name basis with the bartenders soon enough.
OK Omens’ happy hour is all about wine and $1 oysters.
OK Omens
hosford-abernethy
One of Portland’s most impressive wine bars, the James Beard–nominated OK Omens is known (by wine nerds, at least) for its extensive Riesling collection. During happy hour, it doubles down on the German varietal for a hyper-specific, oyster-complemented happy hour. From 5 to 6pm Tuesday through Saturday, raw oysters are $1 a pop, glasses of dry Riesling are $9, and a selection of Riesling bottles, hand-selected by co-owner and sommelier Brent Braun, are 25-percent off. Considering the bottle prices at this airy bistro are already criminally low, it’s hard to find a better deal on the German varietal in town. Sure, there’s also a $9 glass of killer red wine and $10 rotating cocktail, but if you’re not into oysters or Riesling, you should probably pick a less briny happy hour.
The Cajun-spiced tornado potatoes are a Rambler specialty.
The Rambler
boise
From the second it opens, the Rambler’s kitchen team is frying its beer-battered tornado potatoes. Somewhere between a jojo and a curly fry and tossed in Cajun salt, they’re a must during the bar’s happy hour, when you can find them alongside chicken strips, as a basket, or topped with beef gravy, mozzarella, and bacon as the Rambler Poutine, alongside other snacks ranging from $5 to $10. Eat them at any of the tables that wrap around the bar, or around the twin firepits that flank the N Mississippi Craftsman’s entrance—if you get thirsty, take a dollar off beer, wine, well pours, and house cocktails during happy hour.
Roasted cauliflower and a French 75 make a great happy hour combo at Tiny Bubble Room.
Tiny Bubble Room
kenton
Despite running on the early side, 3 to 5pm daily, the happy hour at N Lombard’s casual taphouse and cocktail bar has reigned as one of North Portland’s best for years. This is thanks to its daily beer and cider selections for $4, bubbles and cocktail specials like daiquiris and old-fashioneds for $7, and bottles of wine for $20. The bar also pulls off the Louisiana lilt of its food menu: Find catfish and pulled pork sliders, red beans and rice, and a gumbo so uproariously seasoned and rich with andouille sausage that it vies for the title of Portland’s best. Plus, every dish on the menu is just $6. Enjoy it all in the tufted red leather booths or out on the patio with its fireplaces and converted storage unit seating.
More than just a dance club with an amazing patio, White Owl Social Club is a happy hour mainstay.
White Owl Social Club
buckman
Late-night dance parties packed with twentysomethings and an absolutely massive back patio are White Owl’s main draws, but the happy hour here should not be overlooked. From 4 to 6pm daily (except on Fridays, when happy hour runs until 9pm), you’ll find sandwich combos for $10 and White Owl’s vegan burger for $11—made with beets, quinoa, and hazelnuts, it’s earned a bit of a cult following in Portland. White Owl also has imbibing covered, with specials like $11 Aperol spritzes, $9 margaritas, and $6 cocktails and highballs made with better-than-average well spirits.
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