McMenamins Oregon City

More of a bar atmosphere but everything else was standard to Mcmenamins. Had a great cup of soup with my wife and 2 nice glasses of Black Rabbit Red.

We love McMenamins. The fish and chips are great here, their orange soda is a cream soda. You cannot go wrong with any of their locations, food, theatres or menu items. We have stayed in many locations and eaten most of their items over the years. Looking forward to the clam chowder tonight. Come and try them if you haven’t.

Great burgers and tots. I love the beer and the people working there. We usually go with a fairly large group and it’s never disappointed.

I pleasantly enjoyed myself the one time I came in back when I lived in town. The rooftop seating was fun and gorgeous. It was a bit crowded and we had to sit in the very center which wasn’t ideal, but the staff was awesome and the food was good as always.

Good time is always here Pea soup not a fan. Everything else on menu is great Miss the scoobie snacks though drinks are strong on well drinks during happy hour in late of week Thank you bright haired lady

Way overpriced, severely bland and every server seemed to actually be in pain having to provide service. Would not ever recommend except for their outside patio which is cool if you’re already drunk and won’t notice the service.

It was our lucky find for a smokey hot summer day. Now we have a great watering hole in Oregon City with a landscaped deck garden by the river. We visit Tigard McMenamins for an afternoon pick us up beer and artichoke chip dip… service on the deck was just right at 3:30 pm but keep it to happy hour choices. Frosty beers are the best in town and are seriously delivered in minutes. …Sunday menu service is a challenge for a small kitchen order as soon as you get a waitress, and they hire happy people.

We came in late one night and sat on their outdoor patio seating area; the lights, and the atmosphere were very welcoming, we had an amazing waitress, and the food was great, at a very reasonable price.
I LOVED THE Tater Tots, and ranch dipping sauce.
I would be delighted to go back, thanks for the good experience!

Nothing terrible or spectacular to report here, just average. I felt the service was not bad, yet not spectacular, just average like the food. Well, except for the sweet potato fries, those are addictive.

Oregon City’s McMenamins is certainly cute but is almost always crowded. The service is slow but friendly for the most part. Every McMenamins varies. This one has pretty high prices like the rest of them but I find the extra items on the menu more interesting here than at their sister restaurants.
I have never been impressed with the food McMenamins offers. Over the last ten years like many Oregonians, I have tasted just about everything on their standard daily menu. Nothing has ever jumped out at me. The rotating special menus that they have are usually where you will catch a winning dish.
I am a big fan of the Ruby Ale and the Purple Haze Ale McMenamins offers. They hit a familiar spot in my memory and always go down well. I do not like the strict pours on their liquor. I always feel uncomfortable seeing a bartender carefully measure a shot, spill some of it and charge you the highest possible price for less than a ounce. It is a personal pet peeve, I dislike it but will not allow that fact to affect my review rating.
I came back with my party today to get McMenamins new fish tacos. Having them on my last visit was a treat. They are very good with crispy fish (only slightly overcooked), fresh pico and a good hand of cilantro flavor. They are not greasy and the tortillas hold together. Yummy.
We decided on some tots this time which McMenamins is known for frying perfectly. They have their fry oil tempature and time dialed in. We also tried the Astro Pup Hot Dog which comes topped with pulled pork, smoked mozzarella, fried onions and jalapeños. The hot dog itself was not that great, a beef frank would have been much better. The pulled pork was rather dry and the cook forgot the jalapeños. It was not bad but I wouldn’t order it again.
The gentleman who served us was very nice, I assume he is the manager. He was short staffed and the food took over a hour to come out. We are patient people and we were warned that the kitchen was under pressure so we could not complain. It is the fourth of July after all.

I love this location, especially with the rockin’ new deck. Aside from one bizarre incident a few years ago, the service is consistently friendly and well-​paced.
The burgers seem especially good here, as do the Cajun tots. It’s where I first fell in love with Black Rabbit, too. We don’t get to this side of the metro area much any more, but when we do, it’s always a treat to stop here for a little something.

A productive day ended at McMenamins Oregon City on a sunny Saturday. It was the last McMenamins needed for our Eastside page of our passports, so we made the short drive to check it out.
I really liked this McMenamins. It’s right on highways 99 and not too far from the 205 exit. What really sets this location apart is that it overlooks the Willamette and has a nice (maybe even recently built?) patio deck. There was seating for about 20 – 30 people on the deck, and when we arrived there was still a table available. Our server was nice and took care of the passports without issue.
We just had beers that day. Certainly is worthwhile to go during happy hour when beers are $ 4. I had a wheat ale which was surprisingly good and refreshing on the hot day. We also tried their vanilla porter, but it lacked really any vanilla flavor. In all the McMenamins my wife and I have been to, we’ve found they do a much better job with lighter beers. Their porters and stouts tend to lack a full body and weaker flavor. But sometimes they’ll surprise you!
If you’re on the passport hunt, this location will be enjoyable. So hit it up!

Good beer. I like two of their burgers very much. The others are comparable to other restaurants.
Get the Rubinator!

We sat down. Ordered our food. After waiting for what seemed like a long time the waitress came by to say that she just now put in our order and that one of the meals was unavailable.
So we ordered something else. Still took quite a while for food to arrive and with very small portions with inflated prices.
Won’t be going back.

Some people love McMenamins’ beer. Me? Not so much. It tastes like its been aged the least amount of time necessary to turn a buck. How about a nice European style lager? Why do all the beers taste so bitter and skunky (lighter ones) or too sickly sweet (dark ones)?
When it comes to the salty overpriced food, well, if you eat at one McMenamins, then you’ve pretty much eaten at all of them, aside from a few token items from one McMenamins location to another.
As for the décor, how many Masonic symbols can you fit under one roof? Jeez Louise. Okay, we get it. The McMenamins are free masons. Great. Whoopy for them. I’m sure being Masons didn’t hurt back in the day before bars in Oregon were allowed to brew their own beer. McMenamins paved the way for that to happen across the Pacific Northwest.
This has certainly been a good thing, but I still think that the McMenamin brothers enjoy an unfair advantage over other developers when it comes to pushing through liquor licenses and getting zoning in landmarks for their pubs to come in and McMenamalize the place with all of their smiling suns and generic hippy-​esque/​Masonic décor. The McMinimal Brothers obviously enjoy insider networking connections.
To me, this is unfair and it is also one major reason the McMinimal Empire has thrived while other businesses come and go. I’m sure they’ve got some fancy tax loopholes with all of their «historical landmark» buildings as well, that hardly look historical any more, instead reminding one of cartoon advertising for the all of their spooky occult-​like Masonic fetishes that play upon themes of ghosts, acid trips, etc. News bulletin: the All Seeing Eye Agency started the acid counter culture in the USA, along with the Rockefellers. It wasn’t a grass roots movement started by the general public. Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters were a Psy Op and he got his acid direct from Stanford that was working for a banker-​run arm of Uncle Sam’s. If you doubt this, listen to Jan Irwin interviews online at Gnostic Media dot com. He’s on it, yo.
I’m friends with a guy who painted the original Jerry Garcia mural at the Barleymill pub on Hawthorne. He said that McMenamins corporation paid him minimum wage to paint the mural, and that he had to pay for all of his own paint and supplies (in other words, he barely broke even on that job). The mural was demolished to make room for a few windows about ten years later. To me, this spoke volumes. I wonder if McMenamins still takes advantage of young and talented art students right out of college? If you see the elusive brothers, then ask them.

Stumbled upon this Mcmenamins after a day at Mt. Hood when both the husband and myself were famished. We ordered a Reuben with tots and some spinach dip and everything tastes great. They also have an outdoor patio which makes any restaurant better, in my opinion. The food took a little too long to arrive (the waitress mentioned they were backed up) however, sunshine, beer, and a patio helped alleviate that problem.

I’ve only been to one other McMenamins since moving to Oregon and that time I was only there for beers. This time we went for lunch and, while I really wasn’t expecting much, what surprised me was how spendy it is for what it was.
$ 10 for a nothing-​special turkey sandwich. Really? $ 13 for a burger with bacon and cheddar, overcooked? We asked for it med-​rare, it came out med-​well. There was one other table in the place — did the cook fall asleep and just forget the burger, or what? McMenamins, do you realize I can get a bacon cheeseburger at Laurelhurst Market — a place with locally-​sourced meat, its own butcher shop and a chef who will get it cooked the way I want it even when every table is full on a Friday night — for $ 1 more than I paid for this mediocre overcooked and utterly-​forgettable burger experience? If you’re going to charge double digits for a sandwich it better be good. Nothing we ordered was anywhere near worth what they were charging.
As for service, the waitress came back to check on us before we had taken our first bites and didn’t make another appearance until it was all over, so we never had the chance to point out the overcooked burger. She was pleasant enough but come on, there was one other table in the place.
Additionally, the place was dirty. You might not notice it at night, but noon reveals the stained curtain hems and dirty, torn lampshades on the mini table lamps. Unappetizing.

As most anyone knows, you do a McMennimins, you know what you’re gonna get, and the service is that legendary ‘ho hum de dum’ quality that keeps you saying, why do we keep doing this. So reviewing one of them seems unimportant, but this place it special.
Luckily, the Oregon City location is a big step above the rest. The atmosphere cannot be beat. In summer there’s a great outdoor deck with lots of seating, surrounded by plants and trees, that make you forget you’re sitting on one of the busiest sections of street in SE PDX. The building used to be a church way back in the day, and is the epitome of what Mcmenamins set out to be. Restore a classic place and make great pub food and drinks.
Service as always is spotty, and the dining area at times can suffer from tables and seats that aren’t as clean as they could be, so that loses a star from me. However, the quality of the food is pretty good here, and unlike other locations, I’ve never had a bad meal here, and some love is put into the presentation and quality. They recently revamped their menu, and there are some nice surprises, especially for veggies like me.
So why just 3 stars? The other star gets dropped by the prices. McMennimins beer and drinks just aren’t on par with other «brew-​yer-​own», and dropping $ 5 on a pint is just insane. Their craftsmanship has sailed long ago, and price gouging customers to make up for honest competition isn’t going to win you any favors in my book. Food prices are okay, but for what you get, coming here for dinner isn’t worth it for me.
Happy hour keeps me coming here, mainly for nicely prepped pub snacks and a beer with friends. It’s reliable, it’s a great atmosphere, and for a company where the «chain» and the «brand» have become more important than the quality, it’s nice to have little reminders like this one that take you back to the 90’s when your dilapidated building in your old town was retro-​outfitted, and turned into a neighborhood gem that made you feel you could be an adult kid drinking a fresh micro-​brew with tater tots!

I’ve found that I pretty much know what to expect by now from any McMenamins. They are fun to go to, pretty, drinks are good, beer is good, and food is good. nothing over the top amazing, but good. The service could be a lot better but like I said, I don’t expect anything amazing anymore.

Standard McMenimans food and beer. We went on a Saturday night and it was very quiet.
Nice view of the Clackamas River from the window.
My only critique is that, rather than asking if we wanted anything else, the waitress kept offering to bring the check. Then, once we asked for the check, she took a while to come get our credit card.
Worth checking out if you are in the area.