Renner’s Grill Is Both Interchangeable and Unique

It’s not a stretch to imagine Renner’s nondescript kitsch and above-average tap list feeling just as at home in, say, Cully, or perhaps the less glamorous edges of Nob Hill

(Henry Cromett)
By Pete Cottell

7819 SW Capitol Highway, 503-246-9097. 7 am-2:30 am daily. Happy hour 3-6 pm daily: $1 off drafts, wells and house wines; food specials.

Established: 1939

Holding true to the premium Portlanders place on a good neighborhood dive, Renner's is the kind of place that's interchangeable yet unique at the same time. Its rogues' gallery of septuagenarians, divorcees and confused-looking young professionals jibes perfectly with its Multnomah Village environs, but it's not a stretch to imagine Renner's nondescript kitsch and above-average tap list feeling just as at home in, say, Cully, or perhaps the less glamorous edges of Nob Hill. A two-alarm fire back in March threatened to end its impressive run thanks to a kitchen mishap, but ownership promises Renner's will go back to slinging $1 Jell-O shots and the Juicy Lucy—an unimpeachable mockup of Minnesota's pride and joy that puts cheese inside and on top of the beef ($9.75)—by the time this publication goes to press. Here's hoping it makes good on that promise, because drinking your way out of time and place is a lot less fun elsewhere in the Village.

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