The Rat and Raven

The Rat and Raven has closed.

Great dive bare on the Ave. Service was good, far better than most in the U-​district.

If only Unilocal would allow half stars! The Rat and Raven truly deserves the extra half star due to the diligent work of their bartender Brooklyn.
It was the night of the first of a string of presidential debates. I wanted to view them like everyone else but I wanted my environment to be a bar. I was meeting a friend in the U District so I started calling bars asking if they would be willing to turn just one tv to the debate. I called one bar and the bartender said it probably wouldn’t be a problem to have one set show the debate but more than likely it would be closed captioned. Meh. I’d rather have audio so I called The Rat and Raven. The bartender, which I later learned was Brooklyn, answered my question with a no problem but wanted me to call back in a few minutes because she had to call her boss to find out what channel it was on. I said sure. Fifteen minutes passed and I called because I like to keep my word and Brooklyn channel 5 would be qued when we got there. Sweet!
Inside of The Rat and Raven wasn’t what I had in mind. It is dark, a little bit of a shock to the system to walk into on a sunny day as we did. You have your bar towards the front, tables and chairs on the opposite side. Towards the back is a larger room that holds concerts. I didn’t view said room but I could see the entrance from where I sat. There is a happy hour until 7:00 with drink and food specials. I initially ordered the fish and chips but they were out so I settled on the cheese curds. While the cheese curds tasted as if they had been sitting in the freezer a few months too long I couldn’t complain since I paid a whopping $ 4 for them.
I can’t say I’ll be back to The Rat and Raven any time soon but this would be a find bar to grab a beer and shoot the shit with some friends. Hey, they have concerts. Check that out. The best part about this bar was Brooklyn going out of her way to make sure some political minding gals can have a place to watch the debate. Thanks Brooklyn!

Typical college hangout… for that, it serves its purpose. Lots of bar games, shufflepuck, pool tables, a few arcade games, corn hole. A variety of indoor and outdoor seating areas for larger parties.
A friend ordered whiskey, and it was equal to a triple pour. Amazing.
There was a taco bar at the event I attended here, and it was really gross (on my way home I had to stop at Taco Bell to make-​up for how gross the tacos were here, if that helps put it into perspective).

I’ve been to this multiple times. Last Saturday, I was there in the afternoon to kill some time. I ordered Long Island. The guy who took and made my order had to ask another guy what goes in it. The drink turned out to be this weird looking color drink. It wasn’t THAT bad, but it certainly was not the best I had. Well, I paid for it, so I had to finish it. Once I did, the other guy made Long Island for another girl, and it looked better than mine. Oh well…
Aside from this incident, The Rat and Raven is great. This was actually the first place my bf took me out for a drink before we started dating, so it holds good memories for me. I’ve also been there with a group of friends and we played that punching game (I sucked at it). This place is usually less packed than other bars on the ave because it’s further away.

I have nothing special to say about this place.
With that being said — when I did go there, it was a huge pain in the butt to go push through a bunch of greek kids just to get to the bar. And from that point on, getting the bartender’s attention…
sigh.

It seems bold — if that’s the word — to use the word «rat» in the name of a restaurant, let alone make it part of the signage. Maybe that’s because the word conjures up more images of the health department than it does of delicious food. From my experience, the Rat and Raven is typical of many college hangouts on «the Ave.» It is poorly lit, in desperate need of a remodel, and most certainly overworks its deep fat fryer. But… like most U-​District establishments, it also has a veggie burger option.
A Gardenburger substitution is offered on all Rat and Raven burgers. The Works burger only needs the deduction of a few strips of bacon to meet a vegetarian’s requirements, and has the intriguing distinction of being topped with a fried onion ring. With the onion ring adding a nice crispness to the burger, two types of cheese (swiss and cheddar), iceburg lettuce, and a half gallon of aioli, the Works is surprisingly good. The quality of the toppings isn’t the highest, but it all works together nicely. The bun (kaiserish) definitely adds to the overall enjoyment of the burger. It has a soft consistency without being spongy and helps contain a burger that is slightly awkward to eat.
Reposted in part from

Went in the fall and didn’t venture upstairs, but the place was pretty empty and chilly. There was trivia that night, which is what we came to participate in. That was pretty fun. It was a weeknight so maybe they were short-​staffed due to low patronage at that hour (which is understandable) but I didn’t like how the place was run in general. Food service stopped way too early. There was really no atmosphere to speak of.
The beer seemed flat. I was excited to order cheese curds, but the batter they used for deep frying was not very good and way too thick.
On a weeknight — if you want to take a big group here to have the place to yourself and just drink a few pitchers of the beer on special (which is a good deal, if you don’t care that it’s flat), then this place is fine, but don’t expect very good food or a nice cozy bar.

Huge outdoor game area with shuffleboard and darts…
…that doubles as a smoking balcony. Soooo, minus three stars.
Cout me in when they completely eliminate the cancer sticks.

The R n R has everything you could possibly need in a bar and more. It’s got shuffleboard, games, tons of space for big groups of people, or small nooks for smaller groups. Upstairs has a semi-​outdoor area that has a cool back patio at a bachelor pad feel to it.
Service and food are excellent. The fries! Let me just say this, YOU DO NOT NEED KETCHUP. They are battered in the stuff dreams are made from and I think twice fried. Sooo good. Good pub food all together– burgers and fries and such.
I will be back many, many more times. Keep up the good stuff!

It’s less douchey and bro-​tastic than Earl’s. The food is decent. It’s large. And it has a smoking balcony.
That is the list of good things about the Rat and Raven in its entirety.
Essentially, only good reason to go here is if you’re in a large group entirely composed of smokers, but you should expect shelling out quite a bit to get drunk enough to tolerate the other people there. Drinks are ridiculously overpriced for the amount of booze you get. A $ 7 glass of brand-​label whiskey is basically served in a shot glass.
Oh, god. It just occurred to me that this could possibly be due to the fratty morons who order whiskey here actually take it in shots.
Man. I hate the U-​District.

Definitely good for groups and also good for game days!

This place is decent, but I wish I could like it more. They have Murphy’s Irish Stout (which I actually prefer to Guinness) on tap most of the time and that’s really tasty. The pub grub is mediocre at best, though it’s definitely edible. The food specials are sometimes good with $ 1 fish tacos and other deals. My wife loves the fact that the have Ninkasi Total Domination on tap which is kick-​ass, super-​hoppy IPA that I can’t stand but IPA-​lovers will appreciate.
The décor is really well done and the place feels like an English or Irish pub, but the atmosphere leaves something to be desired. The music is often hip-​hop or rap which is the wrong feel given that most of the time I’m there the pub is not full of frat boys.
Also, it seems like the pub just can’t make up their mind what kind of clientele they want. The décor would lead you to believe they might be trying to draw nicer people down to a u-​district bar that isn’t in the middle of all the ruckus, but at the same time they seem to want to bring in the frat boys based on the music and the jäger tap behind the bar.
As I say, I really want to like this place, but I’ve tried pretty hard and most nights I’d rather stay in and have a beer than walk the 2 blocks to go get one here.

It’s a pub. It’s fairly authentic — lots of heavy, dark wood, big windows, cozy booths. It’s got a great happy hour and even on the regular, drinks are cheap (although not terribly strong — but at the price, you can afford to keep ‘em coming). There’s lots of space for groups, a pool table upstairs, friendly bartenders and doormen, and it’s far enough up the Ave that most of the obnoxious college kids don’t usually make it up there. It’s not a destination but I wouldn’t turn it down. Like I said… it’s a pub. Bam. Done.

I hate the bars in the U. They are terrible and they make me sad. Get it together, bars. Stop being awful.
But this place is a bit different. The happy hour is great — $ 1 off all food and various cheap beers and wells, they have rotating daily specials, and I’ve never seen it crowded. It seems to skew older, not so many dumbass college kids drinking Jäger and being the worst, and the bartender is both nice and extremely attractive. I’ve never been on the weekend, or after happy hour, but I think it’s far enough north on the Ave that it probably is a lot less shitty than the other options. Show this place some love, people! It’s a huge step up from the Irish Immigrant. I mean, at least no one’s been shot yet, right?

It’s a little further north than Earl’s and Finn’s and the usual suspects of the Ave, but the crowd is no less douchey. People get loud and obnoxious and drunk off of liquor/​energy drink combinations and there are popped collars and janky females as far as the eye can see.
The plus size is that this place is huge, but on busy nights you shouldn’t expect to avoid the freshly-​turned-​21-​ers who don’t know how to control their drunk yet.

Stopped in the Rat and Raven last night before heading to Jet City Improv for Twisted Movie night.
They have a decent happy hour that includes a dollar off everything on the menu as well as well drinks and drafts.
Can’t go wrong with a BLT and a couple of PBRs!

I’ve been going to this particular location for about 8 years or so, when it was the Irish Emigrant, and now The Rat & Raven. It’s a great place to meet my friends before going to a Jet City Improv show (a block down the road).
I haven’t been upstairs since the it’s been the R&R — I like the décor downstairs, it sorta has a pub-​ish feel to it. The staff is friendly and fairly quick with the orders, but it’s pretty light on warm bodies in there when we go, 6 pm-​ish on a Saturday night.
The drinks have been good and strong, very nice. I had a good burger a few weeks ago, but whoever decided at the R&R to «double fry» their fries is a saint. The crunchy outside, and soft inside gets me every time.
I’m really hope they keep up the good work!

DON’T COME HERE TO PLAY POOL. The tables are slanted.
Otherwise the place was pretty chill, came on a saturday and live band was playing. They asked for cover at the door to help support the band. It was a dollar.
The inside was pretty nice, as you enter they had a their bar on the right. On the left was a stage and seating area. I spent most of my time upstairs though. The pool tables upstairs were slanted, which is super fail. My friend had a leveler app for his phone and we actually measured how slanted the tables were…
TLDR version: Besides the pool fail, they had free darts, an outdoor area with shuffleboard. Drinks were a bit pricey. The crowd was nice and chill, a very relaxed place. I would give this a 4 but the pool drags it down to a 3.

The new owners of this space have made some very nice remodeling changes and made a good effort to change the vibe for the better. It used to be the Emmigrant, supposedly an Irish bar, which was big and boring and suffered enormously by comparison with the Galway Arms right across the street. The Galway is small and lively, overflowing with interesting people, and remains a bar of considerably more character. But thanks to the new ownership (expanding from Clever Dunne’s on Capitol Hill), the Rat and Raven is now at least a pleasant change of pace.
The R&R now includes a very nice, open, upstairs area, and hosts people playing not only pool and darts, but also shuffleboard, Scrabble and Texas Holdem. The drinks are unfancy, as you’d expect in the a university district, and the crowd, if not as interesting as across the street, is tad more pleasant than the previous one.