Lucky Labrador Brew Pub — Restaurant in Portland

More like 3.5 stars, but rounding up since I keep unexpectedly finding myself here. The space is large, with an exposed, high ceiling and long tables in a beer hall inspired setup, while the walls border on kitschy with a mix of pictures of dogs and bulletin boards full of pictures of folks with Lucky Lab shirts all around the world.

So why do I like the place?

the space - whether it's sitting out back on the large patio (surrounded by folks with their dogs), inside with a large group for a MeetUp, or just tucked away solo in the corner with my laptop, there's plenty of choices, and the large space makes it very adaptable. It's not unusual to walk in and see people running D&D campaigns, playing chess/Go/Scrabble/etc, wide beer selection - while not my favorite Portland brews, I don't think I've had a "bad" beer here. They've always got something on the cask, as well as a nitro pressurized brew as well. No "great" beers in my opinion, but plenty of very serviceable brews. "bento" plates - For $7, you get a big plate of white or brown rice topped with veggies and a choice of sauce (peanut, spicy peanut, or a sweet chili), and you can get chicken and tempeh versions too. Nothing fancy here, no subtleties, just a filling plate of rice and some toppings. sandwiches - okay, I'll admit, I've never ordered a sandwich here, but I'm always tempted (though the lure of the bento plates, which are a few bucks cheaper, tend to lure me in)

I find this Lucky Lab location frequently being a coffee shop alternative for me when I'm looking to get a little work done on my laptop. It's a 10 minute walk from home and while there are also a number of coffee shops in the area, it often wins since it's open late...

We called to make sure this place was dog friendly and received assurances it was. We arrived and went into order and the dude at the bar said it was illegal for me to be inside. True I suppose, Makadangdang, illegal dog. Dude reluctantly and in a distinctly unfriendly manner allowed us to order and pay after which we retired to the late and nice patio. Dude said I should be left alone outside while my human ordered. I don’t really like being outside in public alone when I can’t see my peeps and they can’t see me. This attitude was a first for us in Portland. The person who brought our food was oddly sullen. Coffee shops, pizza joints, pubs, bakeries, and others have all happily allowed me in to order. We thought this place, if any, would extend the same courtesy. Nope. We always minimize our time inside, but this place seems super dog timid. Can’t really blame them from strictly following code, but we do anyway. We will not make the mistake of returning. Food was simple and poor, beers were good, but four paws down for attitude towards me. Leave me out alone, I might get dognapped! They had some mostly empty buckets with nasty water for dogs outside. My human fetched me some clean water and a bowl from my car. Side note: the folks at the north location have been really nice to this dog. Better brewpubs from a dogs perspective include Gigantic, Rogue, Migration, Breakside, Great...

A decently sized sandwich and a pint was $14. They were both good but I have had bigger and better for less. They serve Stumptown beer but not their coffee. 4-5 servers behind the cash registers not delivering food and only helping 1 person at a time. Outside was nice and spread out, the dogs were adorable and mostly well behaved (2 were very unsocial with the other dogs but were taken away after a minor tussle). Over the course of the evening about a dozen smokers stood just on the other side of the waist high wall in front of the "25 feet away" signs completely defeating the point of getting up at all. Inside was much, much better, we wanted to rent the private room for about 4 hours and with only 8 people we couldn't justify the price, $100, so it remained empty the whole evening. The dart boards were in a very weird location with a table of people too close to allow us to stand the normal distance away from the boards.

My favorite part of the night was approximately 5 completely random people walking past our table and grabbing food off our plates with their bare hands, not Lucky Lab's fault at all that's just what the locals are like, but the servers didn't care when I mentioned it to them. If I go back (only for events, not for myself) I'm going to sit inside away from high...