Portland Monthly has described Low Brow as the Pearl District's "diviest dive bar", serving the neighborhood's "working people" with "some of the greasiest food around".[1]Thrillist has said the establishment is "true to its name", with "no frills" and "just cold beer and solid bar snacks".[2]
History
The Low Brow Lounge was stablished in 1998,[3][4] and claims to be the first tater tot bar.[5] Minors can accompany guardians on the side of the restaurant without a bar, as of 2016.[6]
Reception
The bar's exterior in 2020
In 2016, readers of Willamette Week placed Low Brow third in the "Best Dive Bar" category in the annual "Best of Portland Reader's Poll".[7] Readers named Low Brow runner-up in the same category in 2018.[8]
In her 2019 article "Where to Eat and Drink in Portland's Pearl District" for Eater Portland, Kara Stokes wrote, "The Low Brow Lounge is a dark cave of a space that feels both wholly out of place and desperately needed in the posh Pearl, the kind of place ideal to hunker down in while it's raining... It's a dive bar through and through, somewhere to go for stiff cheap drinks and a tinge of old Pearl nostalgia, if not necessarily a dining destination."[9] The website's Alex Frane and Alli Fodor included Low Brow Lounge in their guide to the city's "iconic" dive bars, writing, "A respite of low-brow dining in the otherwise bourgeoise Pearl District, the all-too-appropriately named Low Brow Lounge offers the cheapest drinks and most-fried food for blocks around. The multi-chambered diner and bar sports arcade games and quirky artwork, and each night sees regulars and service-workers coming in for an escape from the Pearl."[10]
In his 2019 overview of Portland's "most essential" dive bars, Thrillist's Pete Cottell wrote, "With cheap-ish craft beer, dark, winding hallways, and above-average bites that rarely break the $10 mark, Low Brow Lounge succeeds at being the only comfortable place for a vast swath of Portland to grab a drink or two when forces beyond their control require them to spend some time in the Pearl District."[11] He also included Low Brow in his 2019 list of the city's "best bars for single mingling".[12]
.jpg)
