Low Brow Lounge

came here for a quick drink and some food with my friend and was pretty disappointed. got the green bean fries and the hummus platter and both were overpriced and not good at all. the bartender was nice and kind of attentive but not super helpful. they served the green bean fries with horseradish and charge 1 $ for ranch. definitely wouldn’t recommend.

Alright. After a few more visits, I’m feeling compelled to upgrade my previous review.
Pros:
* PAUL (not Tim) «The Henchman» and Brian «The Enemy» bartenders (FYI Brian was perviously the grumpy co-​tender, who I now love). Paul is pretty much the best bartender ever.
* Any of the regulars or people sitting at the bar who are pretty awesome (date evaluation, fried food eating partners, or joke telling).
*Prior season of the Deschutes Abyss on draft for a limited time each fall/​winter.
Cons:
* If you take a straight-​laced, easily offended person here, just beware.
* Being awesome or being a poo (they remember you).

Normally I only write positive reviews but I can’t stop thinking about what an ass the bartender was. The vibe in there was great until he opened his mouth.

Definitely do not go to Low Brow for the service. I’ve been there several times and their staff is quite rude. Most recently I found them rude almost to the point of abusive and very entitled. They don’t have much of a selection when it comes to drinks and their food is pretty gross. There are much better places in Portland or even in the Pearl where you could have a drink and not have to tolerate a staff that treats their customers so poorly.

Disgusting. bouncer was rude and the bartender was too. I actually got food poisoning from their food. I was sick as a dog for 24 hours. Honestly it’s a problem waiting to happen.

It’s a horrible place to be sometimes, this country called America, and it’s a terrifying platform to inhabit, this Unilocal,where you have to give at least one star. Because there are some things so deadly, so stultifying, and so utterly unacceptable that they make a bar cease to be a bear, a Unilocal!review cease to be a Unilocal!review, and a man no longer even a man.
The Low Brow is exactly what you would expect from the name: A sordid piece of crap staffed by human scum with an ambience best described as «bowel-​ful.» The drinks are strong if miserable, the service both putrid and speedy, and the experience somewhere between drowning in gasoline and receiving oral pleasure from a wound. And that’s on a good visit. You see, dear reader, if the Low Brow is the underbelly’s of our most ordinary nightmares and banal misgivings, then even the underbelly must have an underbelly. The Low Brow has that to offer if you show up with proper tidings. And that’s when a bar is no longer a bar, a review is no longer a review, and a man can no longer be properly termed as such.
I will refrain from setting the scene or revealing key players because this place is known for holding grudges and issuing retributions ten years in the offing. Suffice it to say that, on a perfect night, you might catch the head honcho of the bar’s henchmen striding about in a Public Enemy shirt, barking (without the slightest hint of irony because that would suggest there was even the human structure of a skull inside his flesh-​bag face, much less a brain to guide it) that women are cunts and that foreigners have no true identity or right to hide inside his craven shore of a bar. Public Enemy was a popular rap group from the late eighties and early nineties that espoused radicalism in all its forms and believed fiercely in anti-​racist, post-​colonial thinking. This guy is a trounced crap-​heart of a being with none of the qualities or soul we commonly expect of a human. If I could stand inside his body and hit the delete key, I probably would. But this is a Unilocal!review so BACK ON TRACK.
The Low Brow has a very bad history of behavior toward people who aren’t white men and some night you go there might be no exception. It is not colorful. It is not earthy or authentic. It is an immoral, untidy hellhole where the price you pay for stiff drinks and fast service is – for you, your friends, or someone you have yet to fall in love with – a heaping dose of indignity. And what’s worse, the henchmen scurry about so effectively when called to kick out an offending party, it’s like they spent their entire miserable insectoid lives training for this very moment. The head honcho sputters, gasps, and smiles. The head honcho is pleased. I hope he remains that way until someone opens up a hole in the ground and sends his business model back to where it belongs.
Dear Low Brow, if you are reading this: Ban me, for I do not care. Hunt me, for I cannot be found. Forgive me, for I will never do the same for you. Believe, just for a second, that you had it right all along. And then just keep doing that over and over again until you achieve true happiness. Because that’s all you’ll ever get. Your bar is garbage, your employees are filth, your money is dirty, your drinks are cursed by everyone who pours them, and that one guy in the Public Enemy shirt should give it over to someone who gets it and be forced to roam the streets forever wondering what he could’ve possibly done wrong.
Later Low Brow. You haven’t seen the last of me but your day has finally come. Stay cheap you bastards. You just might need it.

The Low Brow is an anomaly in the Pearl District. It’s a dirty, dark, grimy dive bar. It’s the perfect antithesis to the standard cocktail bar or fancy restaurants that seem to populate this part of town.
The bartenders are good fun and they’re great at coming round to the tables taking drink orders just at the right moment. The beer is cheap, the place is dark, the seats are comfortable, it’s pretty much all that you want in a dive bar.

This is the place to go for cheap dranks. I once saw a guy come in here on a rascal scooter with an oxygen tank and a full case of PBR. He parked it inside. I was amused.
You can get your standard fried bar fare here for food. You might get a nasty hangover or headache if you go for the cheap well drinks. But they have a decent selection of ciders in bottles so that’s a plus.
This is the place I go to for the pre-​func or after party. Once again… cheap dranks. That’s what this place is all about.

If you’re looking for a real dive bar that smells bad and with cheap beer, this is the place to go.

Low Brow has a couple things going for it:
1. Crazy good service for a dive bar, or any bar for that matter.
2. Solid happy hour.
3. General dark vibe, a little dirty, but clean enough.
4. Comfy booths. Plenty of room for bigger parties in the back.
5. Black lights.
Makes the list.

Go in looking for a dive bar with dive food and this is your place in the pearl. There are so many places close buy that serve overpriced drinks with fancy names but you won’t find this here at Low Brow. My recommendation is to stay away from the beer on tap and stick with a stiff well whisky for a good price. Then get the chicken breasts and tots and you’ll be well on your way to a good happy hour.
Pro-​tip: they have big buck hunter in the back.

The darkness allows for interesting conversation. I give it two thumbs up. Unfortunately, my everlasting memory of this place is forever sour due to the fact that my fiancé and I were stranded outside for 2 hours after the bar closed waiting for our cab to pick us up. The streets were dark, empty, and quiet. To be honest I couldn’t believe the area cleared out so quickly on a Saturday night.
Radio Cab– you’re review is coming an it’s gonna burn.

Because the only thing wrong with this place is the feeling that some idiot felt the need to call it «Low Brow Lounge» because everyone in Portland is beyond stupid and needs a label for everything.
Then again, I felt like punching every male patron right in their face when they came in with their haughty attitude, ordered their shots of «I hate my boss, but I’m a massive Pu**y» and went back to their jobs at Weiden and Kennedy. Yeah, I saw you, and yeah… you’re pathetic and the world is watching.
I guess it’s time to open a bar in Portland, called something like «Not as expensive, but yet warm and inviting» because you’re all just silly.

Late night fried food! Tots and corn dogs. Oh, they have decent AC too.

Love this place! Dive bars are my fav. Great service, fried food, cheap drinks. Need I say more!!! Try the Tits & Tots.

Low Brow is a place that achieves all it aspires to achieve. It’s the kind of place you’ll feel comfortable if you are missing some teeth or roll your own cigarettes and the kind of place you’ll feel welcome if you’re older and more mainstream and have always been afraid to walk inside. The drinks are cheap and the food is fried. Unless you are into raw food you’ll do fine here. What more do you need?
In some respects, the service is the best of any restaurant I’ve been to in Portland, which surprised. Me. But a server is there before you’re starting to froth at the mouth wishing someone would come by to bring you another drink. The food arrives quickly and the servers are smart enough to do the math to let a large party deal with separate checks, something that can’t be said for most of the restaurants in PDX.
My only complaint is the music is too loud to talk to anyone, even when you’re sitting beside them, but we solved that by just buying another round and intuiting what the other people were saying, because really, after knocking down a few, who cares?

The last and only decent dive bar in the Pearl. Low lighting, fun bartenders, no bullshit attitude, and sometimes (a lot of times) the «Grimm» cast hangs out here.
Love this place. Please don’t ever change. I don’t go to a bar to get a $ 12 dollar, poorly-​made martini (looking at you Vault, Brix, River Pig, et al). I go for a beer or a 7/​7, and I want to pay civilian prices. Thank you Low Brow, for keeping it chill and no fuss.

A classy dive — this is where all the cool kids hangout. It’s also my obligatory beer stop after mailing letters and the Post Office HQ. A simple, well executed bar.
I’ve been a patron off and on for the last 10 years or so. This is a place to get down and dirty drunk if you want and consume their famous mini corndogs. There’s no shame.
This visit, I was a little unimpressed with their tap line up, I always remembered them having more variety. Two Boneyard drafts, and like two other IPAs and an Extra Pale. It all sorta seemed same-​ish to me. The service was good and the crowd was nice. I love how dark it is in here. At the entrance there is a wall of used Jäger bottles. A great spot for a regular —- & fun to re-​visit when passing through town. No TVs.

I would like to take a moment and thank Low Brow for «keeping the Pearl Safe For The Rest Of Us». Seriously. That’s their motto.
Keeping us safe from what you may ask? High, exaggerated prices? Is that what you are saving us from? Thank you for charging an extra dollar if you want salsa on your nachos. That is correct, there is actually a place in the Pearl District that charges for the salsa that should come with the nachos — Low Brow to the rescue. Really, I thank you for that. Thank you for the fish and chips at $ 9.00, you know those processed, frozen little triangle things that you deep fry? The kind of little frozen things that no matter what you dip them in they are still really disgusting? Yes, those. Thank you.
Now for the good. The drinks are good. Thank you.
Just don’t get hungry. You’ll thank me.
2014 — Review # 83

A hole-​in-​the wall bar? I’m in! Maybe it’s me, but I’m tired of these overpriced, velvet rope, artistic fire display, $ 10 a water downed drink bars. Why do we need them? Yes I enjoy good beer, and in this town, how can you not? But do I need to pay $ 8 bucks for one and or a cover just to enter to drink said eight buck beer? No, I shouldn’t have to and thankfully there are still plenty of places I can go that I don’t have to worry about that BS.
Low Brow is exactly what it states. You pay $ 8 for a beer and you’re getting an app with it as well. A buck fifty for a PBR, sure why not. I don’t always have to drink the good dark beers that I usually enjoy. Which they do have. The place is dark and has an interesting layout that winds around. Oh, if you use a card there is a $ 10 minimum on one. I did think the «wine bottle» wall was cool.
Nice place, I’d go back if it wasn’t out of the way for me.