Kells Irish Restaurant & Pub — Restaurant in Portland

I expected better of Kells especially for St. Patrick's Day...

First off, when we arrived, there was a long line to enter the restaurant with a cover charge of $20 cash. Me and most people I know don't carry much in cash. In the previous years of me going to Kells on St. Patrick's Day, they didn't have a cover charge. They make quite a bit of profit as it is with the premium food and drink prices. To say they are capitalizing over a holiday is an understatement.

We then explained to the staff we simply wanted to have a St. Patrick’s day meal and they instructed us to go upstairs where we could sit and eat. After going upstairs and waiting literally 20 minutes with no instruction or signage on where to sit or order, we finally got assistance from the bartender. She instructed that the it was a “limited menu” due to it being upstairs and only had about 6 food items to choose from. For myself I ordered the corned beef pasty and my partner ordered the shepherd’s pie along with two cups of beers that totaled $45. At this time, I thought my angst and bad experience was behind and I could look forward to a tasty and filling meal. This was not the case.

We located an available but dirty table where we waited for 45 minutes for our food. When it came to us, they each were on paper plates, my “meal” was simply one small pasty which was more of starter and not an entrée, cold on the outside, and room temperature on the inside. The shepherd’s pie was slightly larger but nowhere near substantial to quell one’s appetite.

The food, service, and whole experience were shockingly bad all the way around. I don’t remember having such a bad experience at Kells in all the years prior. I left feeling sleazy and ripped off majorly. It’s very hard for me to have sympathy for local restaurants like this that were suffering during COVID-19 and begging for help and patronage. Now that the pandemic is dying down and they have one big event that attracts people, they’re going to upcharge and rip people off? Really?? I was an opponent for the possibility of Kells closing their doors when they announced they were for sale but maybe it’s time...

My lady was working the pride parade as her company had a booth so afterwards, we met for lunch. She has been bugging me about going to Kells every time we are down that area and I always say no. After a few times around the block to see where to eat, I finally gave in and we went to Kells. Last time I was in Kells, they had a cigar bar downstairs so it's been a minute. The entire block was crowded but there was no line at Kells so we went in and found a seat at the bar...my theory is that if I sit at the bar, I can get my drinks faster and food faster so I prefer the bar than sitting at a table. That was my mistake. We sat at the bar and got some menus almost right away but then the bartender disappeared to the other end and barely ever came back. There were actually two bartenders but the one closest to us seemed to be busy fixing other drinks and never even acknowledged us. So, we put our menus down and so it would signal we was ready to ordered and by then another lady had sat next to us. The Manager dude (assume he was) came to ask here how she was doing, then asked us and I told him we had been sitting for about 15 min with no service yet, so he went behind the bar and poured a drink for me and asked the bartender to get my lady her pride punch drink which he did. At the time, we took the opportunity to order some food and the poutine fries special for the day. Half hour later, we had finished our drinks, was wanting another drink for my lady and the lady next to us had her food (sausage looking dish) and had finished her drink. I flag down the bartender and told him my lady wanted another drink and when he came back to deliver it, I asked him what was taking so long with our food, especially the poutine since that was the appetizer. I then told him to cancel the food order and close us other. My lady slammed her drink down and we left...she was probably embarrassed but I was already hungry and tired of the crappy service so we left and I'll never go back there again. I did not rate the food, since we never got...

Let me preface this by saying I think when we had gone in there that they ran out of stew.

Kells is one of those places that I would call a definite institution upon the spirit of the city. Had gone there a few weeks ago with someone the food was good and they had a wonderful selection of various spirits. The elixir of life cocktail had some zip to it.

Food wise we had three plates between us. The scotch egg was good if a little bit less then expected could have used some black pepper and maybe more then one egg per plate. Minor nitpicks on that though. Fish and chips was what you expected it to be, good plate not the greatest I have had but not the worst. It was a touch greasy and really just could have used a touch more seasoning in the batter to really make it memorable. The lamb stew was a different story. What makes me think they had run out is with my experience working in kitchens stew is not a hard dish to plate. When the bowl came out the broth was watery and the potatoes were shall we say al dente much firmer then expected, but my no means unpalatable. My guest had been there multiple times over his career at the fire department and was surprised it went out that way.

He ate it though as the lamb stew was still good, it was just a little surprising that out of everything we ate at an Irish style pub that we would have problems with the potatoes in the lamb stew. Wait time was a little long as well for dishes that seemed at least to my knowledge could be done fairly quickly.

Staff was nice, food was good if not great, and the spirit of the place combined with the history in the city would leave one to give it another chance. Hopefully, next time the food we go the food will be...