45th St Pub & Grill

Well, if you like dive bars this is the place for you. PBR's hoops, pool tables and shuffleboard. It is a typical dive bar, so it is an experience. Great prices, friendly service, and a good experience.

First, there isn't any 45th Street in the city of Portland. It's 45th Ave. All the numbered paved roadways are avenues, places, or courts because they run north/south. Streets run east/west.

Second, they don't have SPORTS in their name and don't advertise themselves as a SPORTS BAR but Sam the bartender cut the volume on the jukebox so the others could "watch the game." It was some lame basketball game that didn't even include the Trailblazers. I am not interested in sports so don't lure me into your SPORTS BAR by pretending it's not a sports bar.

The jukebox is sometimes disabled so beware before feeding it any money. You might only be able to hear your music at low volume in "the back" where the pool tables are. You get two credits for a dollar. Playing a song that's already on the jukebox is one credit, playing a song that has to downloaded from the Internet is two credits or more depending on the song.

There are flat panel TVs all over the place. Which would be awesome if they kept them on CNN or MSNBC or CSPAN but instead they put them on SPORTS, even though they aren't a SPORTS BAR.

Why is there an implied association between bars and sports anyway? Is drinking a sport?

The 45th Ave. Pub & Grill has three pinball machines, a shuffleboard table, 2 pool tables, a golf video game, a shooting video game, an old Millipede and Ms. Pac Man game, a bowling video game and five ripoff state lottery video terminals.

And the jukebox.

The atmosphere is ok, a typical dive bar. I've only gone there twice, the second time I was there a drunk guy was yelling about how it was his birthday, someone should buy him a clock, and he wanted to buy a round of mini corn dogs for the house. Most of the customers are middle aged guys. This is, however, the best of the three dive bars (Clubhouse and Cactus Jack's are the other two) in the immediate vicinity.

They serve food but don't have a kitchen. There's a cooking area behind the bar. The bartender has to go crazy dealing with all the drink and food orders all at once.

There's an outdoor smoking area, which is cool since there are so few places where a person can have a beer AND smoke a cigarette at the same time anymore.

And the PORTLAND MEDICAL CANNABIS CLUB is on the same block. That would make this block Intoxication Central except the cannabis club acts more like the police than  the bunch of stoners they really are if you don't have a medical marijuana card.

For a neighborhood dive bar I guess it's all right.  The pool tables are nice and free on Mondays and they have tator tots with a good quality ranch. The clientele however always seems to be older gentlemen who have seen a few beers throughout their days, if you know what I mean.  
The beer selection isn't the greatest though.  I would like to see some local breweries on their tap.

The staff has always been friendly and really welcoming!