Skip to main content
2025 N Kilpatrick St., 503-285-3718, kentonclub.com. 11 am-2:30 am Monday-Friday, 10:30 am-2:30 am Saturday-Sunday. Happy hour 4-6 pm daily: $3.50 wells and drafts, Rainier $1.50.
Established: 1947
The World Famous Kenton Club is world famous for a reason, and the reason is Raquel Welch. If you sit everywhere in this former North Portland honky-tonk and rumble-ready biker joint, you will eventually sit where the sex bomb of the '70s once threatened to pick a drunken catfight back in 1972, when she was filming the roller-derby epic Kansas City Bomber. Thereafter, the Kenton Club appended "World Famous" to its name, in permanent memorial. The Club—home to one of the city's great smoking porches that is always used for that purpose, and some of the most intricate woodwork in the city amid its paneling—is one of Portland's last bars to still have hair on its chest and a swagger in its boots, although the music's now punk rock because that's what country and blues used to be. The beer is cheap, the music's almost always free from Thursday to Sunday, and somebody's always spilled some beer. It used to be a bit more rough-and-ready in here, but even slightly cleaned up for the new karaoke-and-game-night crowds, it remains lovingly imperfect in every way that matters.
Bar story: When Raquel Welch was in town filming scenes at the Kenton, she also filmed fight scenes at Jantzen Beach. Anyway, there's a houseboat near there that she peed in. It's maybe there still?
Welcome to Bar Guide 2017 | Where To Find a Copy of Bar Guide 2017
The 100 Best Bars in Portland | How We Selected Them
Bar of the Year 2017: Bar Casa Vale
2. Century | 3. The Know | 4. Lombard House | 5. The Old Portland
Portland's Party Patios, Porches and Rooftops | Scumbag Breakfasts, Ranked
$6-and-Under Happy Hour Burgers | Portland's Finest Restaurant Bars | Late-Night Happy Hours | $1 Oyster Happy Hour Deals | Best Bar Pizzas | Dope Discount Nachos | Fancy Jell-O Shots | Tapas
Where to Play Shuffleboard | Pinball | Pool Halls