Yamhill Pub Somehow Endures As Downtown’s Only True Dive

Do not order food, avoid the toilets, and never ask how this bar has managed to survive. True magic requires faith.

(Yamhill Pub Facebook)
By Jay Horton

223 SW Yamhill St., 503-295-6613. 10 am-2 am Monday-Friday, noon-2 am Saturday-Sunday. Happy hour 10 am-4 pm daily: $1 off pitchers and wells; 4-8 pm daily: $1.50 draft Pabst, $1.50 shots of McCormick.

Established: 1939

Even as all other emblems of Portland's grimier origins fall to the ravages of gentrification, the Yamhill Pub somehow endures as downtown's only true dive. Everyday prices, such as the $5 tag for a shot of Old Crow and a pint of Pabst, remain unfathomably low, and happy-hour specials seem from another century. Every square inch of the smallish barroom—save the pristine Batman pinball machine, kept untouched by pub fiat—has been so heavily scrawled with graffiti that overlapping tags blur together like modish cave paintings. As an irreplaceable sanctuary for aging street kids, gutterpunk wastrels and bike messengers run aground, regulars take a proprietary interest in their home away from temporary housing, though location and non-Pabst tap appearances from Ex Novo, Pono and Ecliptic draw a steady stream of the more adventurous after-work office crowd. Newcomers are tolerated, begrudgingly, but they'd be wise to mind a few simple rules: Do not order food, avoid the toilets, and never ask how this bar has managed to survive. True magic requires faith.

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