Cheerful Tortoise — Restaurant in Portland

I would NOT recommend this place to anyone who has any amount of melanin in their skin who enjoys hip hop/r&b. Me, my sisters, my husband and his best friend and my dad (who is visiting from out of town) came here to have some fun doing karaoke on a Friday night. We were genuinely enjoying ourselves and the good drinks and atmosphere until it came time for me to put my name in with the KJ.

When I told him the song I wanted to sing, he took a long pause and asked me if the song I requested had explicit lyrics. I was confused, cause we just heard a song by a girl, that literally had explicit lyrics repeated over and over. I asked him for clarification and he said that the crowd was not a hip hop crowd and that he could not play any song with explicit lyrics. He told me twice that he does not know the song and to go online to a website (where he gets his songs from) look up the song I want to sing and research the lyrics. He would not be playing the song I requested.

A few songs later a girl gets up and sings gold digger by Jamie Fox and tho the person singing the song did not say the N word, it was displayed on the screen and I consider that an explicit word.

I asked the KJ to clarify for me what he vonsiders explicit because the song or requested does not have that type of verbiage in it and no explicit lyrics. I told him that I know the song by heart and if he had perhaps looked up the lyrics to o which he replied no. So I asked why my song was not allowed to be played but the person currently singing could sing explicit lyrics. He admitted that he made an assumption Abt the song even tho he didn't know it and would allow me to sing it.

I didn't want to get myself worked up over this but if you're not a PSU student or between the ages of 21-26..... And white.... This isn't the place for u to enjoy karaoke.

I'll never come back here and this bar has left a sour taste in my mouth.

I would give negative stars if I could just off the fact that the KJ was stereotyping me and the people I came there with

We...

As a local watering hole for PSU students, this sports bar offers a lot of great things (wings night, Karaoke, great location, nice atmosphere) but sometimes the service can be a little lacking and ordering from the happy hour menu was disappointing. The prices on draft beer (of which there is a decent selection of microbrews) seem average and some of the special deal nights (such as the wing night where you pay a door fee and then can order wings and beer at a discount) aren't bad for the budget of a PSU student, however what I found left me wanting when I left the Cheerful Tortoise was a better happy hour menu. They do offer a tiered priced menu and some options are better than others, but as someone who loves to eat burgers I was most disappointed by the happy hour burger. For just the burger a-la-carte it was roughly $6 dollars, which doesn't sound bad until you realize that if you order fries from the $3 dollar menu you get a burger and fries for $9 bucks...which doesn't seem much like a deal to me (especially for a rather sub-par burger). The pizza on the menu was also essentially pizza toppings on a tortilla, not much to fill you up. The nachos did seem to be a better deal, but my point is that it's kind of a gamble, one thing may seem like a great deal and another may leave you feeling a bit gipped. Overall when it's late and I just wanna sit and have a beer right on PSU, there aren't many choices and compared to some of the other options cough Rogue cough it's much more affordable, just probably not my...

I've been coming to this place for years, and there has always been different bar tenders buy maybe it's because covid-19 caused a lot of people to leave the service industry but and there not a lot of potential candidates

But the new bar tenders are all men it's really wierd vibe... like I wouldn't want my sisters or female friends drinking here.

Three stars because If they replace the male bar tenders with woman or just maybe different dudes the place would still seem fun,

But with the current staff there I feel like I need a shower ever time I leave. It's cringey not just things I've heard them say to or about patrons, but atmosphere is like something shady is going on and I can't put my finger on it , but I can feel something just ain't right ....

edit after doing some Googling. And reading some these reviews I had no idea about u till just now.

The owner of this place is apartmently awful and treats unhappy customers like it's there fault they had a bad experience. The success of the cheerful tortoise and its sister the mascot has nothing to do with the owner but instead it's location and its customers. People don't go to the cheerful for it's brand or its owner they go drink with their friends who are other customers.

Oh and Amy I don't need your permission to...