Bar Guide 2015: Purringtons Cat Lounge

3529 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 334-3570, purringtonscatlounge.com. Noon-8 pm Tuesday-Sunday.

There are cat people. There are dog people. In the middle of that Venn diagram, there are people who enjoy touching animals while they've got a good buzz going. And until someone finally puts a full-on petting zoo inside a bar, Purringtons is going to have to do for the lot of us. Occupying the former site of Mack and Dub's, the great chicken-and-waffles joint that burned to the ground in an apparent hate crime two years ago, Portland's first cat cafe is like the punchline to a lost Chappelle's Show sketch about gentrification, but still: motherfucking cats, yo! For $8, visitors can spend an hour in a room resembling a daycare play area attempting to forge a connection with a creature you sense would rather be left alone—which makes it no different than any other bar, really. With a small selection of wine and rotating craft brews poured by just the sort of hip librarian types you'd expect to find behind the counter at a cat cafe, the ultimate goal is to get you lubed up just enough to start thinking about that tabby-shaped hole in your heart and adopt one of the little critters. Hey, there are certainly worse things you can end up taking home after a few beers.

Happy hour: 4-7 pm daily. $1 off beer, house wine, meow-mosas and the house nachos.

Entertainment: Did you not just read all that stuff about the cats?


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WWeek 2015

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