Portland’s Best Sports Bars

If you find yourself on Hawthorne Boulevard in the wee hours of the morning only to spot a crowd spilling out of a window-lined bar on the corner of SE 17th, it’s likely that an international soccer, er, football match is on. Gol sometimes opens before it can even serve alcohol legally, so the most ardent of hooligans can catch their favorite games. For those who are less keen on 4am kickoffs, it also regularly screens American soccer games, including Timbers and Thorns. The bar itself is appreciably low-key with a plethora of jerseys and flags as decor, and even those less sports-driven can appreciate its killer happy hour.

A popular locale for the downtown workers crowd, the Independent is always airing some kind of game. And with more than 30 screens arrayed throughout, you won’t have to crane your neck to catch the winning touchdown. It pairs its entertainment with a robust menu that includes weekend brunch and weekday lunches, plus daily happy hour, dinner, and late-night offerings. Food here runs as classic American sports bar as it gets, diners digging into burgers, nachos, wings, chicken tenders, and fries. But since this is Portland, you can still knock back a beer from its sizable tap list of local brews and domestic beers.

When Jackie’s opened in the old Century Bar space in 2021, the management team insisted it wasn’t a sports bar, but rather a “bar with sports.” While largely a matter of semantics (and branding), they carried that idea through the design: You won’t find neon beer signs or sporting paraphernalia in any of the rooms of this sprawling compound. Instead, you’ll find balconies and patios, an arena-shaped central room with a dance floor, live and fake plants, and classic game day snacks and drinks (nachos, burgers, spicy mango margs). But the multiple flat-screens adorning most walls gives away the (home) game: Jackie’s is a bar for sports lovers as much as it is for fans of great views.

The youngest bar on this list, Jerry’s Tavern slipped into its Northwest PDX digs and immediately felt like it had been there for years. As Portland Monthly’s own restaurant critic, Jordan Michelman, put it, “It looks like it opened in 1946 instead of 2024.” With Midwestern hospitality, old-school sports bar vibes (think leather booths and beer-branded glass lampshades), and some of the best wings in the city, it’s already developed a devoted following—many of whom come here to watch the Packers and Brewers play (Jerry’s also caters to Wisconsin sports fans), but especially the Cubs, Bulls, and Da Bears.

While a bit slept on by the city at large, Midwest expats and Humboldt residents regularly flock to this narrow, brick-walled bottle shop and taproom. They come for the rows of coolers stocked with countless beer bottles, the impressive tap list, and the heartland cooking that includes squeaky cheese curds, handmade pasties, and tavern-style pizzas. But they also come for Green Bay Packers games, which Saraveza screens throughout the season. On game nights, the bar gets positively packed with green-and-gold-garbed patrons cheering on the team.

A sister bar to downtown’s Independent, Satellite Tavern offers many of the same draws: walls of flat-screen TVs, an impressive tap list, early weekend hours. But it comes with the added benefit of a stellar patio, complete with cornhole boards, a covered section, a handful of TVs, and the vintage Satellite sign that once adorned a Gresham diner. In addition to games, Satellite screens every pay-per-view UFC match, for those who like a little more head-punching and roundhouse kicks in their contact sports.

It can be rough to be a Portland Trail Blazers fan. While the team is talented and driven, its fans as rabid as any city’s, the Blazers haven’t won a championship since 1977. But that fateful year at least gave us the name of this warehouse-size bar perched above I-84 near the Oregon Convention Center. And it manages to fill up on game nights thanks to that very fanbase, who don red, white, and black jerseys to cheer on Dame and the rest of the crew. Beyond Blazers, Spirit of 77 screens all manner of sports both local and national, and during commercial breaks you can do your best Bill Walton impression at the hoops range with real basketballs.

Likely Portland’s most famous sports bar, the cleverly named Sports Bra made national news when it landed on NE Broadway in 2022 as the country’s first bar devoted to women’s sports. It was soon joined by Seattle’s Rough & Tumble, and then more proliferated across the country. Now, the Bra is expanding to cities like Boston and Las Vegas, proving that there’s a hunger for these kinds of establishments. But for Portlanders, it will always be ours, first and foremost. While snacking on tots and wings and sipping cocktails made with Freeland Spirits (the city’s first women-owned distillery), crowds of all gender and age squeeze into wooden bistro chairs and snag seats at the hardwood bar to catch Thorns games and WNBA matches—soon to include Portland’s own Fire.

You might not think a bar sporting this much Star Trek paraphernalia would also be a place for sports, but this Montavilla bar caters to Bills fans just as much as Trekkies. The bar regularly whips up food specials for games—whether it’s an Upstate New York dish or an homage to whatever city the Bills are playing in that day—but it’s always worth an order of Buffalo wings, even if the team isn’t playing. Between New York football games and Trek episodes, the cozy, neighborly bar screens Timbers, Thorns, and Blazers games.

While Portland has its share of sports bars, only a few of them are managed by professional athletes. Yur’s Bar and Grill, which looks out over I-405 and the Pearl District, is owned by former Washington Commanders offensive lineman Terry Hermeling. With brick walls, carpets, leather booths, and neon signs, it nicely combines a divey vibe with a touch of class. It’s open as early and as late as bars can, from 7am to 2:30am, and even serves breakfast specials for those early games. Naturally, football is the focus here, but the bar screens plenty of basketball and baseball during their seasons.