The Best Dive Bars in Portland
Scooter McQuade’s is a dive bar gold standard.
Patrons and critics alike have argued over the definition of a dive since the term was invented. There are some easy stipulations to follow: Are the pours here cheap? Do your feet stick to the floor? Does the bathroom fill you with unease? Is the OLCC’s requirement to serve hot food begrudgingly met with microwaved meals or hot dogs? But ultimately it comes down to that ineffable quality of vibes, and the sentiment made famous by Justice Potter Stewart in 1964: I know it when I see it.
And then there’s the other question: Why dives? For the most part, finding a dive bar means stumbling down the nearest major street for less than a block in pursuit of the oldest, most beat-up bar door. They’re not exactly rare. But with the rapid decline of third places in the twenty-first century, they’re damn near essential. The price point is usually much lower than cocktail bars or even pubs, and they won’t intimidate customers by messing around with esoteric liquors or house-made bitters. Instead, they offer an unpretentious venue with cheap drinks, privacy, and often some kind of entertainment, like billiards, televised sporting events, or pinball.
Visit any bar below and you’ll be met with true professionals of the industry, many of which have been pouring whiskey and cokes for longer than their customers have been legally allowed to drink them. The list does skip a few of the more “polished” dives that some readers may see as major omissions; they’re great neighborhood bars, no doubt, but they all start to feel a little too nice to meet our—albeit amorphous—definition of a dive. Expect many more video poker machines, stained carpets, and neon bar signs.
The purple sign of the Cosmo Lounge.
Cosmo Lounge
Sellwood-moreland
Drive along Milwaukie Avenue and a half dozen dives will likely beckon: the Bear Paw Inn, Houndogs, the Yukon Tavern. Any of them will suffice for a budget night out (though beware: the Yukon Tavern has cleaned up its act and now offers some of the best bar food in Sellwood); that being said, the area’s best dive can be found further south under a purple sign labeled Cosmo Lounge. An intimate space with tall bar tables and stools, Cosmo Lounge covers its walls with velvet paintings, framed albums, and mirrors that reflect the dangling bauble lights. It offers nothing fancy: an appreciable tap list, cheap liquors, and a recommendation to go elsewhere for food (like the Yukon). But visit on any night of the week past 10pm and it will be packed with service workers and other neighborhood residents looking for a warm and friendly place to drink in peace.
Leather recliners and plenty of screens make Katie O’Brien’s a destination.
Katie O’Brien’s
kerns
Don’t call Katie O’Brien’s an Irish bar, despite its name and the corned beef present on the all-day breakfast menu– it doesn’t even have a dedicated Guinness tap (though there is a nitro one). The bar brands itself as a sports bar, and it does boast an array of TVs for games. But with its dirt-cheap prices, rowdy clientele, and storied history on Sandy Boulevard, we feel comfortable calling it a dive. Those looking to catch a Blazers game or a boxing match will probably head to the game side of the bar, slightly sunken and filled with televisions, pool tables, video poker, even a dart board. But even without the romper room, Katie O’Brien’s appeals for its well-worn, luxurious bar seating. Where else in town can you lounge in a leather recliner on wheels while knocking back Irish whiskeys?
Fernet and pool at Angelo’s.
Angelo’s
Richmond
Back in the indefinable days of Old Portland, the upper area of Hawthorne was known as the Barmuda Triangle for its plethora of charmingly grimy dive bars. On a weekend night you’d see tattooed, leather-clad revelers spilling into the streets and going from bar to bar for pool, cheap drinks, and fried food. But now most of the dives have either closed (RIP Mighty Moe’s Tanker) or have grown out of the dive status (Bar of the Gods and Space Room still slap, they’re just doing so with cleaner floors now). Luckily, Angelo’s remains. It continues to cater to the same punk rockers and metalheads it always has, as the remnants of Hawthorne’s counter-culture scenes gather around pool tables and knock back cheap well drinks in the booths. Angelo’s breaks one dive bar rule, though: In early 2024, Chicago-style sandwich shop Michael’s moved from its historic Sandy location to the adjoining kitchen at Angelo’s. So now you can order an Italian beef or meatball sub with your Espolon and soda, chef.
The sign at Ship Ahoy Tavern has welcomed patrons in for decades.
Ship Ahoy Tavern
creston-kenilworth
The Pub at the End of the Universe is long gone, but luckily its fellow, neighboring dive bar Ship Ahoy Tavern lives on. Like any good Portland dive, it’s been around since the 1940s, before many of its clients were born, and today it remains a popular watering hole for Reedies and other neighborhood residents. The space is rather cramped, with around a dozen bar stools and a few tables in the narrow main room. The adjoining nook fits a bit more, including a pool table. Don’t expect any kind of drink specials or cocktails—you’re ordering well liquors and neat whiskeys here, maybe with a beer back. As per OLCC requirements, it does serve food, but unfortunately inflation has come for us all and the hot dogs, once only $1, are now a wallet-emptying $5. But the regulars rarely mind, so long as you don’t mess with their jukebox choices.
Gil’s Speakeasy
Buckman
Gil’s Speakeasy resembles a dive bar from a TV show, starting with the fact that it’s located in the basement of an apartment complex in the industrial east side. Only a Keno sign and a fire escape directly over the front door mark its location. Over the years it’s lost some of its rougher edges, but what it gave up in imminent danger it retained in charm and affordability. A center bar with seating on both sides splits the main room, with walls covered in (often profane) chalk drawings and writing. Pinball machines, video poker, shuffleboard, and billiards provide entertainment, and local DJs spin records (though expect more metal and hard rock than house music). Draft lists hew toward domestic lagers and the obligatory food menu sticks to palatable bar staples. The motto here is “the nicest assholes in town,” so do keep it down if you’re stumbling out at 1am: There are people sleeping in the apartments above, after all.
The Knotty Pine was just one of Scooter’s names over the years.
Scooter McQuade’s
downtown
If you’ve ever merged onto 405 while downtown, you’ve probably driven right by Scooter McQuade’s without realizing it. A small door on SW Washington Street leads into a shotgun house of a bar that’s stood there for a century in one form or another. Its walls are covered in black-and-white photos showing off the history of the venue and downtown Portland, and a neon sign above the video poker machines screams “KNOTTY PINE,” one of the bar’s previous names. It’s a space for regulars, where the bartenders greet entrants by name and ring up tabs on the old-school cash register. Even on a rainy weekday night, Scooter’s is filled with laughter and friendly chatter as locals mingle under the canopy of eclectic flags pinned to the ceiling.
Joe’s Cellar
northwest district
Over the years, Slabtown has grown from a quiet, grungy part of Northwest Portland into a sprawling metropolitan area, home to vegetable-heavy steakhouses, indie coffee roasters, and every flavor of gym. But duck into the windowless bar that is Joe’s Cellar and it might as well be the ’90s again. This venerable dive operates much the same as it has for decades, with carpeted floors, wood-paneled walls, and lighting that mostly comes from bar signs and lamps that illuminate the battered pool tables. In 2013 the building was deemed too dangerous to operate, and it looked like the bar was going to close for good. Luckily, new owners took over and restored the building without compromising its divey appeal, so Joe’s is still slinging well drinks and greasy-spoon breakfasts.
The Yamhill Pub is one of Portland’s most iconic dives.
Yamhill Pub
Downtown
Ask a native Portlander where to find the diviest spot in town, and there’s no small chance they’ll point you to this dingy watering hole downtown. The Yamhill Pub has been here since 1934, unyielding in the face of change, a relic of a grimier, rougher era. You have to know where to look, as it’s marked only by a nondescript wall and a stained, oft-graffitied green awning, just feet from the MAX tracks. Inside, the walls are completely covered in graffiti and inked doodles, with a wall-mounted digital jukebox, a pinball machine, and a few TV screens the only entertainment. The less said about the bathrooms, the better. But that’s no problem for the regulars nursing cheap whiskey and PBR under the cool glow of neon lights. At one point the Yamhill sold more Pabst Blue Ribbon than anywhere else in the US, and it has the plaques to prove it.
Fried chicken and cheap drinks make Reel one of the city’s most famous watering holes.
Reel M Inn
hosford-abernethy
Yamhill Pub might be Portland’s diviest dive bar, but the Reel is a Portland darling. Unlike most (if not all) of the city’s dives, this Division spot has landed on countless national lists and travel guides. How many publications have mentioned that it’s worth the hour-long wait for Reel’s fried chicken, now? But it’s earned that vaunted position by never compromising, never taking off the graffiti or the weird fishing equipment from its rafters, and never getting too full of itself. Its popularity waxes and wanes a bit, based on national attention and the weather, but its regulars (who will cross town to come here) remain loyal. So go ahead: Order that generous pour of liquor, put your chicken order in, and try to navigate around the cramped-in pool table while you wait the hour-plus time it takes for dinner. It’s worth it, after all.
The Perch Bar & Grill
St. Johns
St. Johns is kind of its own little town, hidden away in the northern reaches of Portland and flanked by our twin rivers. As such, the area has more than a few dives to pick from, but if you’re sticking to one for whatever reason, it should be the Perch Bar & Grill. It hits all the right dive notes: a funky carpet, pool table, wood-paneled walls, and a clientele that mostly consists of regulars swigging shots and beer pairings. Its relative isolation in no way means you should feel nervous about visiting, though: Step through the cherry-red front door and you’ll be treated like a regular from the get-go.
It’s always a party at the Slammer Tavern.
The Slammer Tavern
Buckman
It’s Christmas 365 days of the year at the Slammer Tavern. Or, at least, it looks like it. One year long past, someone decided to decorate with Christmas lights inside and out, and they just never came down. During the holiday season the bar is extra lit, as are the imbibers inside. There’s a tiny liquor selection here, a modest draft list, and a food menu more obligatory than generous. But it has what you need: friendly but no-nonsense bartenders, a Skee-Ball machine, a cutesy vending machine, and a refreshing lack of video poker. Its proximity to cocktail havens like Rum Club and Scotch Lodge make it a popular last stop of a crawl, which leads to a diverse clientele as locals and bridge-and-tunnel folk bump elbows at the central, U-shaped bar.
Regulars make up the bulk of Mad Hanna’s clientele.
Mad Hanna
Cully
A Cully institution, Mad Hanna pushes the definition of a dive bar while remaining just on this side of it. The floor rarely sticks to your feet, there’s a drink menu, tidy bathrooms, and a distinct lack of danger. That’s because Mad Hanna proudly declares itself “the cleanest dive bar you’ll ever be in.” There’s a wall of video poker for visitors looking to throw away some cash, Jell-O shot specials, board games, and a pool table. Regulars buy drinks for absent friends, putting their names up on a board so they can claim the gift later. Thirty-somethings flip through the assorted records from bins on a side table, while older patrons station themselves at the video poker wall. In summertime the spacious back patio fills with revelers enjoying the shady covers and firepits, often with their dogs, allowed there so long as they’re leashed. Mad Hanna has no shortage of charisma, making it one of the most beloved dive bars in the northeast quadrant.
The Lion’s Eye
lents
There are more than a few dive bars dotting 82nd Avenue and the Lents neighborhood, but for our money, the Lion’s Eye stands out. Out front, a placard depicting a roaring lion marks the entrance. Inside, the expansive dining room is bisected by a narrow horseshoe bar, where the warm and friendly staff pour draft beers and well drinks to regulars. Groups of friends play pool or furiously tap the side buttons of pinball machines (note the conspicuous absence of video poker), and the staff often breaks dive bar tradition by offering seasonal drink specials, like watermelon margaritas in summer and boozy raspberry hot chocolate in winter. The spacious back patio, though, provides the main draw to the Lion’s Eye: Year-round, neighborhood barflies knock back pints at picnic tables, shaded by umbrellas and protected from the rain by awnings.
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