Billy Ray’s

The divest dive bar that ever could be. From the gnarly-​ass bathrooms to the food menu unapologetically and entirely consisting of frozen dinners, this place is all about one thing: Where can you find a super-​cheap drink and a dark corner in which to drink it?
OK, it may also be about one other thing: pinball. The upstairs game room is actually pretty legit. 4 pinball machines, and dang good ones at that. There’s a pool table, a Ms Pac-​Man and one of those animal-​murder simulators (i kid, i kid. I love Big Buck Hunter.) There’s a big screen TV, so I was able to keep tabs on the World Series while playing my bar games with relative ease.

Kick it & chill and enjoy the dive bars Portland is so good with that! diamonds in the city…

Stopped in with 2 friends to have a drink. My friend had been traveling a lot and the little bit of one beer didn’t set well with her. She made her best attempt to get to the bathroom. Didn’t make it. She did however make sure she puked outside instead of into the bar. She was in the doorway where it leads to the patio. I told the bartender and offered to clean it up. At first he said sure. Then in seconds flipped his attitude. He complained. Told me my friend needed to leave. Continued to make comments that weren’t relevant to the situation. No one was drunk. No one was rude. In fact we tipped him extra and did our best to make light of the situation. Sorry your a bartender dude. Maybe it’s time for a change. At the very least the temper tantrum wasn’t needed. Bartender made the comment… «We’re not 16.» Well we’re not 4 either.

Got to love Billy Ray’s! Cheap drinks, Ms. Pacman, pinball!
This is just an overall great dive bar. And it’s just that, don’t expect anything more. Just a relaxing place to grab a drink, chill with friends, and play some games.

Dive bar is an understatment… this place is über dive but fun! we came here after a so-​so meal at Ox which is across the street to watch a Blazers basketball game before it ended. The drinks are cheap, the service is bland, the seats are vinyl and stick to your legs, but it was just perfectly perfect for what we wanted. The crowd was lively and the TVs were functioning! Great place to watch the game. I also think they were getting ready for a triva night or game night after the game which if it werent so late on a work night we would have stayed to play!

This place is cool. I came here a few years ago with an ex-​roommate who had moved to this part of town. She just referred to it as «bar». My friend and I needed a cheap place for cocktails before the show at Wonder Ballroom. Under wonder charged $ 5 and we had over an hour to kill. So we found this place. Cocktails — a tall for $ 3.75. The only food — and I kinda remembered this — is tv dinners. Yup, frozen tv dinners. I asked when the last time he sold one was, he informed us that this would be his first. He tells us that they are the $ 1.00 frozen dinners that they sell for $ 5. My friend got a slice next door instead.
They have a real big and nice smoking patio out back. I think it’s bigger than the bat itself. Most of the patrons (and the bartender) were nice, I found a guy from Boston! Actually Somerville, even stranger! So basically, I dig this place.

A dive bar is a dime a dozen. A good dive bar is a diamond in the rough.
Billy Ray’s is always a party, even if you’re the only one there. Whenever I’m there, I feel like I just arrived right as the rager ended. But that’s how I like my partys. I’m not big into crowds.
The music here is awesome, there’s pinball, and a huge back area. The drinks here are cheap, and they only take cash. Yes, I do recall the bar having a distinct smell, but it’s a dive on MLK– not exactly the must happening blvd. in town– so I would expect no less. There bartenders here are pretty «hands-​off» so this is a great place to come with your big group of friends, and just feel free to talk loudly about inappropriate things and maybe even get borderline rowdy. I can’t recall if they serve any food here, but I wouldn’t even bother with that at this bar. Maybe they sold a few bags of chips.
I definitely look forward to coming here throughout the summer and enjoying their big backyard area. Cheap beers, sun, and your inappropriate friends– that sounds like a party to me.

Cheap drinks, cheap girls, great neighborhood feel.

I’m a dive bar fan, and I don’t mind punk music but… The problem I had with it is that after paying $ 3 a beer at ground control, I felt a little ripped to be paying $ 6 for a well vodka tonic at a dive bar where the smell of urine assaults your nostrils. It’s not that I’m too good for urine smells, and lime slices that have been cut so long ago that they are starting to turn brown around the edges, it’s just relative to all the places nearby, their drink prices in particular should have been a lot cheaper if that’s what they are offering.

Billy rays is my jam. Friendly bartenders cheap booze, 22oz. Glasses, buck hunter safari, patio is chill, pool table, pin ball with high scores you will probably never beat, juke box, video crack, art on the walls, hungry man dinners, worst place to poop at, sketchy characters once in a while, ping pong during not so rainy months. What’s not to like? Mostly chill crowd though. Cash only so be ready. They have an ATM.

Stiff drinks. Cheap. Nothing better.
Juke box is primarily classic punk music.
Pinball and other entertainment.

A really great dive. pinball machines upstairs, patio (for ppl who smoke), pool tables, etc. DJ on Tuesday nights.

Truly one of the best Dive bars in Portland. The staff is great, friendly and quick witted. The regulars that hang out there, mostly from the immediate neighborhood, are friendly and treat everyone that shows up to check it out, like they have been coming there for years. The prices are good and cheap, but don’t expect a good meal with your drink. It’s literally a banquet TV dinner. Fortunately, they let you bring food in or even have it delivered there.
I can’t say enough good things about this bar, or the people you will find in it. Both the staff and the regulars. If you act up, get in a fight, or are a violent drunk, don’t bother, you will be kicked out, and none of the cliental will put up with it either. Everyone is there to have a great time and fun conversation.

A decent little bar and refreshing based on the other places I’ve visited in Portland so far. $ 2 Coors banquet beer is what it’s all about! Everyone has PBR and the other versions of it in tallboy cans for about the same, but I was glad to find my favorite domestic at a dive while playing pinball on the five tables that they had upstairs.

Why did I come here, according to the world? Because my friends were meeting up here before going to see «Evil Dead: The Musical» (precisely as awesome as it sounds).
Why did I come here in reality? Because a colleague of mine who works in Manhattan subscribes to a «Dive Bar t-​shirt of the month» club. I know, I didn’t know that was a thing, either. But it exists, and what t-​shirt do you suppose he received? That’s right, Billy Ray’s. Naturally, I felt like I needed to represent Portland and inspect its finer qualities.
It certainly lived up to its dive bar status, although it’s more Portland-​divey than actual-​divey (don’t pretend like you don’t know what I mean). The worst thing about it is they have basically no food — I think they have some microwave pizzas or something, but the bartender warned me against those and told me it would be OK for us to order sandwiches and bring them in to eat there.
Other than that, ’twas a perfectly pleasant, if small and unmarked, experience. The drinks were affordable and stiff enough to do the trick, and there was a patio. Yay patios! The décor was cheesey-​divey and I made sure to take a picture of myself inside to show my incredulous New Yorker pal.

Big time dive. With some character.
Not bad. Plenty for the PBR crowd. They also serve adult beer.
Their hot dogs at so nasty they could’ve been pulled out of a dogs ass. I have honestly never eaten such a greasy piece of shit before.

This is the ultimate AMERICAN BAR folks. Appreciate, enjoy, kiss the sticky, sticky floor and thank the good lord you are lucky enough to live in the US of A where there are real bars: Bars with muscle, bars with cajones, bars with MEANING.
I do not presently live in the US of A, owing to my marriage to a foreigner as well as the tricky economic situation in my homeland right now. I am an «expat» who has lived abroad for five years now. I have a job and I have state funded health care. Also there are kangaroos here. Yay. All those things are awesome, however, what I don’t have is a bar like Billy Ray’s. They don’t exist outside America apparently. Anyway, I dream of this place when I am particularly homesick: The juke where I used to play the Sonics; the big frosty pint of cheap Oregon beer; the moody, narrow space with its perfect old school bar lined with swivel stools (at least I think they are swivel stools… it’s been awhile). I’ll never forget coming in here on Christmas eve 2004: The window was fogged against the icy conditions outside but inside Billy Ray’s the strung up Christmas lights were aglow and the dim bar was filled with a crew of blue collar worker and hipsters, all sipping pints and watching a mute, close captioned Law and Order episode from 1993. Danzig or the Misfits were growling in the background and we were all together, communing, silently. That shit was special.

Rolled into this place after the beerfest at the convention center. It was DH, his buddy and myself.
We went in and there was a counterful of women and then us. We have been trying to get our buddy out to find a GF and he just doesn’t have the sauve.
Anyways, this place was great, had an old time juke box and a great time was had by all. I would love to return, but like I said I always say this and end up never going back and forgetting about the place.
The bartender was super sweet and cute too. Oops did I say that outloud? This is a cash only place, so make sure you have hit the ATM already. Didn’t know that until we ordered and I said can I just give you my card and the guy said cash only. That wasn’t too bad, but I like using my card over cash. Cash seems to go too quickly.

Cripes, what a dive. But you know, it’s a dive with heart, and as at all times, I wanna know what sucka got heart!
First, let us consider the real estate. I can only snort through my nose, oh so ungraciously, that in all my trips to Billy Ray’s, I’ve only seen one black person there, once. Otherwise, it’s effeminate white bread hipster boys (and a smattering of their respective women folk) who I’ll bet $ 100 to all takers, by and large, are new to Portland within the past 5 and certainly the past 15 years. So much for authenticity. That said, their sound system was crankin’ out the old school R & B, takin’ NO prisoners– Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, there were too many for me to enumerate. So they DO get points for the music!
I had to laugh @ Andrew’s comment about Billy Ray Cyrus… Yes it’s true, there’s no identifying mark outside the building, other than the neon «Tavern». You have to dig a little to learn it’s called Billy Ray’s (there’s not even any menus. see below as to why that might be). For old cooter natives like me, when you hear Billy Ray, of course you think Billy Ray Bates, the SENSATION for the trail blazers in the very early 80s, who fizzled due to drugs and alcohol, and whom I’ve heard is still playing in places like the Phillippines, where they’ll still pay him well to play!
To give you an idea of how ghetto-​fabulous this place is, they only accept cash! Tell me one other dive bar in town that won’t accept plastic! Just One! I’ve heard that Helvetia out in Hillsboro also is cash only, but even for a guy like me that grew up in the too-​low-​for-​Zee-​ro No Po, wow! That is b-​a-​m-​m-​e-​r! The upside is, they’re «top shelf» drinks top out at around 5 bucks; but conversely, their only «grill» menu option is (wait for it!) TV dinners! This is probably pointed out in other Unilocal reviews for this place, but I didn’t see it mentioned, in skimming through the reviews. Yup, tv friggin’ dinners! I asked if they were «Hungry Man,» but had to take a pass, when asked if I wanted one…
Upstairs is the game room. Very trashy and sleazy, but daaaaaamn they have very low budget pool. foos ball, pin ball, and even table-​top Ms. Pac-​Man. A lot of these transplant young hipsters know a ghetto-​fabulous good time when they see one, clearly…

I used to live a block from this place and went there maybe five times. Now, years later, I drive up this way when I need to play pinball without running into anyone I know. Billy Rays is a good one.
Ground level’s got the bar and a few tables. If you’re really special, you can keep a giant beer mug there. Beer is super cheap, by the way. Upstairs, find the real reason for going there: pinball. That’s really all I need to say about that.
Writing this, I am struck with two now-​vivid but formerly forgotten memories:
1. I once broke a window there (upstairs) and did not get in trouble.
2. Got in a monumental fight with an idiotic roommate over the definition of the word «Catholic». I believe she cried and stormed off.
These events did not occur in the same evening, thought that would probably make for a much better story.