Magic Gardens Restaurant & Lounge

Girls, I love you and your Magic Garden.
I mean, I heard you’re leaving me, and come on, girl, that just ain’t fair.
You know I meant it when I said you’re the best strip club I’ve ever set foot in, the girls are HOT HOT HOT. The music is GOOD, the bartender is the coolest chick in town and the bouncers are surprisingly nice.
Go in and have the time of your life, but for GODS SAKE TIP THOSE GIRLS!

Last night, THE last night, at the Magic was fantastic. I saw and talked to so many people I haven’t seen in years. The place was packed, and the high-​light was bartender Kami dancing her final set, as she hasn’t danced in years. MUCH applause.

Goodbye & farewell my sweet little nasty dive bar that I’ve known since the mid 80s when it was shut down for promoting prostitution heh heh heh heh. For tonight is your very last night ever 12/​31/​2014

It’s sad to see another Portland institution closing up shop. The end of the month is last call for Magic Gardens. I was glad that several friends and I were discussing this at an event last night, so we decided stopping by to pay our last respects would be appropriate.
I hadn’t been for a number of years, yet not a thing had changed. It’s divey, small, and thoroughly Old Portland. There is no pole, but the girls manage to put on a good show none the less. Don’t expect acrobatics, maybe more of a burlesque style. The girls are all natural which is refreshing.
There are chairs along the bar and in front of the rack, along with a pool table. The drinks are poured the way you would expect in this type of establishment.
I don’t know what’s next for this spot, but it won’t be anything like Magic. I don’t go to many female strip clubs, but I always felt very comfortable here. Farewell!

According to the lovely barmaid Patty, this place is closing up shop at the end of this month. She mentioned this unprovoked while topping off a Stella, so I imagine she’s pretty torn up about the whole situation. I know I am…
And you should be too!
Get in here now!
Tits & ass hmmmyeah!!!
Magic Gardens was my first foray into the realm of strip joints, and I feel a bit spoiled: nobody was creepy or gross, there were about as many women as dudes circling the tables (okay maybe a few more dudes) and the whole joint didn’t reek of cologne. That said, I hope you like incense…
I do, and I also liked that nobody was creepy or gross. Just thought I’d repeat that.

In fact, I got a real neighborhood vibe from the folks who showed up – granted I wasn’t here too too late, but everyone, even the strippers, seemed more focused on talk than titties (but hey y’know they were pretty nice!). The stage is obviously the focal point, but each corner of the establishment is neatly vignetted: that is to say, the red light doesn’t glare, it radiates. But of course there’s a mirror behind the bar in case your conversation isn’t quite doing it for you.
Again: GO TO THIS PLACE SOON, even if your intimidated by the whole stripper thing. The playlist is awesome: I didn’t hear any awful hip-​hop/​reggaeton, and «Tumbling Dice» was playing as I walked through the door. It was a good omen.

This place was fun but now it is closed.

What more can a red blooded reluctantly approaching middle aged man want? Dimly lit dive bar. Check. Strong cheap drinks. Check. Pool table. Check. Old lady with too many stories untold. Check. Oh yeah, hot chicks dancing. Only in Portland can beautiful cool girls be naked and you have 16 oz of Tecate and Waylon Jennings all at the same time. Feel the Magic, enter the Garden.

This place is the best dive bar on the west side, hands down. The drinks are powerful, the lighting is dim, the food is cheap. Don’t go for the strippers, but go for the ambiance. Patty the bartender (owner? not sure) is the capstone of the experience. Magic Gardens is the place to go to drink away your troubles, or maybe drink yourself into new ones. I’m only giving it 4 out of 5 stars because it sometimes smells pretty powerfully like an enormous urinal.

This is a great place if you’re looking for an actual bar where there are also (perhaps as an afterthought) dancers. The atmosphere is calm and welcoming and they serve pretty decent food (although when I went they were out of steak so don’t hold me to that).
All in all this is a relaxing place to eat, drink, enjoy the nice girls, and have a conversation.

It wasn’t ALL about tits, it was just a bar tended by a sweet old lady where there happened to be naked women. Very comfortable setting to just hang out and have a beer, and enjoy the sights of attractive women.

The 80 year old bartender is the worst server and rudest I’ve ever met. I will never come back, if she was a guy I’d punch her.

The dancers play amazing and decently obscure music selections, the door guy has a good sense of humor, the bartender looks older than the hills but remembers everything and is on her game. All that and an eclectic crowd, a pool table and a $ 3.75 clam strip basket, how can you go wrong??? The best dive bar strip club I have ever visited, hands down!

The one and only Bolivia recommended this bar to my friends, and every time we’ve visited they’ve had consistently attractive, interesting dancers. It was a great place to take my friend for her first strip show! The booze is over-​priced cheap shit, in other words: typical.

Ever experience the smell of coffee and fireworks while at a strip club? Magic Gardens may just be the weirdest but most awesome dive strip club I’ve stepped in.
Thanks to Alicyn C to bringing me to this magical abode. Stepping in, we get ID’ed and enter a small, divey garden. Oh look, there’s our server at the restaurant we were just at. This place must be good.
We sit at the bar. I turn around to order drinks. Who is the bartender you ask? Well, it is your neighbourhood cutie, a grandma in her late 60’s (minimum). Wicked. I order a Jamesons & ginger. The sweetie freepours easily half a glass of Jamesons. Easily a triple, I paid $ 4. Win.
There are only 2 dancers on rotation. They sometimes take turns running the bar. One of them might be the granddaughter. We didn’t ask.
One dude stage side appeared to have quite the deep conversation with a dancer. He may have been covertly stroking it. Best left a mystery.
Patrons were super cool. One guy gave us the best places to check out, straight up.
Trust your gut. When Magic is in a place’s name. Believe. Oh and no one drank the coffee. Must’ve just been for ambiance.

Boobs, Snatch, Cheap drinks, Old and cranky female bartenders, Bar food, Video poker… If any of these things sound appealing to you then you’ll enjoy this place.
It’s the strip club you could take your mom to, with naked chicks being second to the normal hole-​in-​the-​wall watering hole atmosphere. Nudity’s not in your face unless you want it to be, and when it is it’s pretty sanitary. (Or it least it appeared to be) There were two ladies dancing the night I went and they were both a lot hotter than you’d think they’d be given my description of this spot so far.
Drinks could start a car they were so strong, and cheaper than any place I’ve ever seen a naked girl at. It’s not Vegas, but if you enjoy any of those initial features I first mentioned, you’ll definitely dig Magic Garden at least for a cocktail or two.

Writing a review about Magic Gardens will almost spoil all of the fun. Just come here and see for yourself, it’s pretty magical indeed.

For the first time, I felt like I could really talk to strippers. It wasn’t that glazed over vacant look off into this distance. Last night, my new stripper friend and I talked out her symmetrical haircut, the adorable bathing suit she donned and then not donned and the little things that make you go «heh» in a day. Overall, a very pleasurable experience.
It honestly felt more like being at a dive, playing pool and then being like, oh hey, there’s a stage with a naked lady on it. The patrons weren’t your standard lady-​hungry gorillas with desperate wallets either, nay, the people here could’ve been my friends. If the cool kids went to a strip club, it might be this one.
In between games of pool and sips of Canadian Club, my buddy and I donated to the dancer’s cause and I’d say overall, I felt pretty good about it. Left feeling clean and happy rather than covered in the undeniable stench of sadness prevalent in most other strip clubs. knowwhatamean?

On a quick trip to PDX, I made my rounds. Made a stop here because of decent reviews I had read of this joint. There’s one dance floor and the long bar is opposite to the stage. Towards the back is a large sitting area. I ordered an ale, and watched the entertainment. For my visit, the dancers were awiite.
This place isn’t unique… it’s just a dive bar which happens to have boobies. (And there’s nothing wrong with that, right?)

I joked around with my friend that Magic Garden would be a great name for a vegetarian restaurant. Needless to say, you won’t find a leafy green in sight (but I do find it entertaining that there’s a preschool in town that calls itself Magic Garden as well… perhaps this is trashy equivalent of grad school?
). This is the kind of bar that really makes you appreciate life’s little wonders. While I’d hesitate to call it a «lounge» or a «restaurant,» I definitely consider Magic Garden to be just what the name implies — magic!
If you’re used to making it rain at gentlemen’s clubs in Vegas or Los Angeles, you’ll be sorely disappointed. There’s no smoke, flashing lights, or champagne rooms (hell, I don’t even think they sell champagne, peroid!); but there’s video poker, pool tables… and a small stage with two hard working women that happen to be wearing nothing but their birthday suits. I can’t say I’d consider the ladies working last night «tens,» but I’ll just say they had character… take that for what it’s worth. But their presence is almost as pedestrian as a stuffed moose head above the bar… it’s there, but you can just as easily enjoy a $ 3 PBR and forget you’re even at a strip club at all.
In my mind, if you’re visiting Portland and you don’t stop through Magic Garden for just one drink, you haven’t really visited Portland at all.

Oh, the seeds that have been cultivated in this garden, why it must be like Eden! This is a strip club like no other I’ve been to: full-​on and in the ring when you want it, with girls who seriously rock and sway, without the unnecessary plastic parts.
It’s a dive bar, outside of that, and if you’re really not interested in the gyrational, more fleshy aspects of the venue, you can easily find solace in beers and tequila. The bartender here, well she’s like the most cranky old woman ever, but she’s comes across almost motherly if you tip well. When I first got there, I asked for change for a twenty, and she said, «Buy a damn beer and you’ll get some.» Nice.