Portland Happy Hour: Rae's Lakeview Lounge

What: Rae's Lakeview Lounge
Where: 1900 NW 27th Avenue
When: Daily happy hour 2 - 6 pm
Honeys Heart: $9 Carafes

It's been a while since Katie and I reviewed a true happy hour, but we recently met up halfway (ish) between our two work establishments for some end-of-week unwinding (aka wine drinking).

Rae's has been around for quite some time (like 50 plus years) and for people who have lived most of our post-college lives in NW, it's maybe a little surprising we didn't make it there before now.

The restaurant has a neighborhood dive feel inside, so we opted to sit outside on the patio where we soon learned that it's assumed you'll share your picnic table if you're a party of two. That's okay by us, but it would have been appreciated if the server could have given us a heads up before he plopped two menus down next to us.

Also, within a few minutes of us being seated, the bros behind us began to surround us in plumes of smoke from their e-cigarettes. I mean, I guess it didn't smell as bad or linger in my hair as long as a regular cigarette, but it for sure affected our patio experience.

To help take the edge off our so-far iffy visit, we decided to order a half-carafe of the house wine ($9)... followed by a second carafe. The second carafe was obviously a different wine than the first, but whatevs. Cheap wine is cheap wine, right?

For snacks, we ordered the Cheddar Mack ($4.50) and Black and Tan Hummus ($6.50). Both would definitely fall into the greasy bar food category and while I wouldn't go to Rae's for the culinary experience, at least the prices were cheap?

Maybe we're just getting old, but I think both of us would willingly pay a bit more for higher quality food and a better ambiance. Those $9 carafes might convince us to come back though...