[Read all of the articles in our Portland Fun Guide HERE! Looking for a print copy? Look at this handy-dandy map!—eds.]

Portland has so many dive bars, and folks feel passionately about each one. But the word "dive" can encompass many vibes. Generally, a dive possesses a lack of pretension and a promise of cheaper-end drinks. The bathroom might be described as somewhere between community art project and compost pile. The furniture is scarce; sometimes there's just one chair on one side of the room and a single table on the other. The patio might have graffiti left by your mother, which you add to like a growth chart. 

Predominantly, dives are small and dark. They have food—as required by the OLCC—but if you order any you'll make everyone there annoyed because there's only one bartender. 

It's not scientific; it's not a checklist. You can find good food, personable bartenders, and chairs and still have a dive.

For the purposes of this article—written to create conversation that devolves into bickering—we will organize Portland's dives into the following categories: food dive, music dive, activity dive, and dive dive. We do not have enough room to include all the dives. If you think there should be more categories, or that one bar is in the wrong category, please go to your nearest dive and really get into it with someone. Wherever someone is arguing about something stupid over a cheap drink, a dive bar is with them.

Food Dive

Portland is blessed to have so many excellent dives with good (occasionally great) food. For this we can largely thank the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission (OLCC), which requires bars to offer hot meals with hard liquor. Most emblematic of this arrangement is Reel M Inn (2430 SE Division) whose fame as a dark corner bar where you can get a tallboy and piping-hot fried chicken has landed it on many of Portland's Best-of lists. Also legendary are the wait times for those glistening delights—they only have one fryer—but you can have the beer while you wait. The fact that your meal arrives when you're two or three drinks in doesn't hurt its reputation.

My Father's Place (523 SE Grand) is a dive bar inside a long-standing, much-beloved greasy spoon. The enduring draw of breakfast all day, at most hours of the day—it's only really closed between 2:30 am-7 am—is the reason we'd wager most people go to MFP. You know it's open, and you can probably get a table with your friends. Local critics have gushed about the liver and onions, if that's something you desire. The chicken-fried steak has never steered us wrong.

Speaking of surprisingly good, I'll just say it: The Hilt (1934 NE Alberta) is fucking solid. The menu is primarily Greek food, pitas and falafel, but the house burger is no slouch. Open your mind and try on the garbanzo-zucchini patty; I've been messing with that for years, and it's never let me down. If you're lucky, you can grab one of the cherished two-seater booths along its front window, perfect for reading or intimate meet-ups.

Red Fox (5128 N Albina) has a short tap list that nevertheless includes nitro fernet, and a brief menu that boasts jackfruit tacos. Everything here is just a little better than it has to be. We could ascribe it to keeping up with the Joneses because everything surrounding Red Fox brings the heat—we're talking Mississippi Records, Sweedeedee, and speakeasy kava tea shop Nalu, which you find by venturing into the loading lot behind Cherry Sprout Produce.

Joe's Cellar (1332 NW 21st) is one to argue about. Is it a food dive? Is it a dive dive? Is it even a dive if it closes at midnight and forces us to reach the properly degenerate hour of 2 am in the brightly-lit EDM stronghold up the block. What pushes Joe's into the food category are the number of times I've seen people chowing down on salad there. Every year we hear that they're about to close everything up and turn into Slabtown condos. Say it ain't so, Joe.

It's become a common joke that bars bought up by business partners Warren Boothby and Marcus Archambeault are divey versions of what McMenamins does with historic buildings, but I'm grateful that Holman's (15 SE 28th) is back. Its sideroom reaches a buzzy warmth, and its patio is perennially cool.The bartenders shoot daggers into me if I order a mixed drink, so its dive status remains firmly in place. Other mentionables from this dive dynasty: Lay Low (6015 SE Powell), Sandy Jug (7417 NE Sandy).

Music Dive

Funny story… Firkin Tavern (1927 SE 11th) closed for renovations for five months in 2023. And when it reopened, it was exactly the same inside: It always looks like a room that's just been cleared after a fight. As it turned out, the remodel was for a different part of the building, and Firkin's owners know this hot little show spot, with at least one legendary-level barkeep, is perfect just how it is. The full calendar of music at Starday Tavern (6517 SE Foster) plants its flag firmly as a music dive—there's at least one if not three things happening a night. Another beneficiary of cool neighbors, Starday welcomes outside slices from nearby spaces, like Atlas Pizza.

Architectural-minded punks rejoice because Alley Way (2415 NE Alberta) is in a quonset hut! It's also a great spot to see local punks get noisy and weird, and if there isn't a show on, the covered patio is a great place to chat and cruise. Dark basement bar Shanghai Tunnel (211 SW Ankeny) is one of the few places in Old Town not overrun by bridge and tunnel warriors on the weekends. But we've been to a number of quality metal shows held there with seemingly increasing frequency, so we're tentatively moving her out of dive dive and into music dive—for now! 

Activity Dive

Suki's (2401 SW 4th) in Southwest holds down a solid reputation as a karaoke destination with strong-to-serviceable well drinks. In 2023, the owner also purchased beloved fallen dive bar Claudia's, rechristening it Suki's II (3006 SE Hawthorne). Karaoke at Suki's is laid back and less intimidating than places like the Alibi (place of the perpetually-arpeggiating birthday serenade). Bear Paw (3237 SE Milwaukie) is another slept-on stunner karaoke spot, with slightly more opportunity for mischief thanks to their lengthy tequila menu that taunts me at every turn.

The distinction between dive bars and pool halls is where the arguing really begins. Yur's Bar and Grill (717 NW 16th) has good tacos, big booths, and a main room that feels like a high school dance where everyone is standing around the edges of the room—except the floor is full of pool tables.

Dive Dive

Removing activities, food, and music from the dive bar equation leaves you alone with just the drink, your thoughts, or plain ol' conversation. A good dive is an ideal place to catch up, commiserate, or simply to be around your friends. Scooter McQuade's (1321 SW Washington) offers little other than a narrow hall next door to Crystal Ballroom, but it's the place where a dynamic conversation with a friend-of-a-friend began a yearslong bestieship for this critic. Similarly, B-Side Tavern (632 E Burnside) offers merely tables, taps, and a patio that keeps going (truly, try behind that door—there's more)!

Rooms that you're not sure if you're supposed to be in are a lesser-appreciated, but absolutely defining dive characteristic. It was about a year into drinking at Billy Ray's (2216 NE MLK) before I realized there was an upstairs area, with a pool table and arcade games. B.Ray's also boasts a fairly advanced patio for a dive and even busts out a misting system on super hot summer days. 

It was once a great pastime to while away Portland's heatwaves, sipping sweet lager underground, but Gil's Speakeasy (609½ SE Taylor) may be one of the last, lingering basement bars we can rely on. Kind of like a Tardis, she feels bigger on the inside than the outside. The food's not half bad, but this is still your dive's dive. Similarly, Slim's (8635 N Lombard) in St. Johns serves food and pretty often has live music, but based purely on vibes, I still think it's a dive dive.

The true crown of Portland dive bars obviously belongs to Yamhill Pub (223 SW Yamhill), a nondescript hole-in-the wall downtown with far more graffiti inside than out. Yes, the bathroom is chaotic, but Yamhill is beloved by some of the last true punks in Portland and a few confused businessmen. One day, anthropologists will painstakingly excavate the layers of sharpie lining this bar's walls, and beneath they will find the soul of Portland, alive and well.