Horse Brass Pub

gn12hr

Joined 2 years ago

As a customer for more than a decade I am now convinced I will never be going back!

The good: Despite the British 'themed' menu, they do have decent craft brews and grocery store bottled imports (seriously marked up). This place gets the job done for a quick beer in a hurry. The look is charming, decorated, woodsy, European, and musky.

The bad: This place is very dirty! After sitting you can hardly ignore sticky tables and floors. A trip to the bathroom reveals urine soaked floors (into the hall). The yellowed walls with rustic outlines add charm but after licking a finger and rubbing a small area you notice that it is indeed heavy smoke stain. The slight smell is reminiscent of years when you could not see the other side of the bar through the haze.

The incident that pushed me was being refused service (in front of out of town family) after being told that I did "not enjoy myself on previous visits". On the previous visit I confronted the waitress after she picked up our money and put the change ($19) in her tip jar without confirming that we were leaving a tip. Needless to say, that visit she did not receive a tip. I guess they no longer value my patronage.

It is a smoking (now without smoking) and drinking pub that relies on dine-in customers to stay afloat. Keeping up with Portland and the post-smoking era it is not! Treat your future customers right!

Doesn't Recommend

LiamLiam

Joined 2 years ago

Terrible service has ruined this place.. I've been several times and over the past few years and the service just gets worse and worse. I went this past weekend and the bartender and waitress were outright hostile. I won't be going back.

There are plenty of bars in Portland with a great beer selection, and better pub food, and there is no reason to put up with their crappy attitude.

Doesn't Recommend

cystal1000

Joined 2 years ago

lame excuse for a British pub. I woke up Sunday morning craving a good English Breakfast, and the Horse Brass was the only pub open. When we walked in we were greeted with the strong smell of urine. Assuming it was just from the street we went in and sat down. Our service was fine, but the food was terrible. As a former resident of the UK, I know what an English Breakfast is supposed to be. Instead of sausage links, they were bland patties, instead of grilled tomatoes we were given stewed ones just plopped on the plate, the beans were not right, the back bacon was off, potatoes were so overcooked you could play Conkers with them, and there was this fry bread that looked like it was last nights leftover bagget just sliced and tossed in the fryer. Gross. Sadly, the interior looks more like a western bar then a British Pub. The only good things was the HP sauce. We won't be going back.

Doesn't Recommend

daveryn

Joined 5 years ago

Microwaved pot pie, sysco coleslaw, tough fish & chips. So the best thing about a pot pie is the flaky delicious pastry. They MICROWAVED it. It was soggy and rubbery.

The halibut on the fish and chips was so grossly overcooked that it had the consistency of chicken. I still don't believe my husband that it really was halibut.

Coleslaw definitely Reser's.

Men's bathroom without soap. Hope the servers and cooks take the extra time to go wash hands elsewhere after using the toilet.

Looks great to party at. Felt like a sucker for eating there.

Doesn't Recommend

leftcoast686

Joined 4 years ago

What happened to this place?. I used to love this bar, it was a fun place to go and get a couple beers with some friends and catch up. Recently though things seem to have changed. I don't know if they suddenly decided they didn't need to treat customers well now or something but I (and the 20 people we were with) were all treated absolutely like trash.

It was a friend of mine's 23rd birthday and we hadn't even been there for 20 minutes when we were chastised for singing, the happy birthday song!!! The waitress, who had already ignored us for 15 minutes, literally told us "that'll be enough of that." Really?

Needless to say we got our bill (at least those of us that had actually been served drinks) and left our former favorite bar.

Recommends

lizzysreviews

Joined 4 years ago

Good Food, Fun Environment. I really liked the atmosphere here. The beer selection was great! The food was really goo too. I had the fish and chips. They only thing they could improve on is there service. Our waitress was not terrible but she was slow and ditzy.

Recommends

Big Frankie

Joined 3 years ago

Used to be great, still pretty good. This bar used to be an amazing local hangout but apparently the Hipster Weekly News letter did a story on this place because now it's mostly filled with 20-something hipsters trying painfully hard to look cool yet unimpressed. Still the ambience, beer list and food is great. Just be prepared for guys in skinny jeans, retro clothing from designer boutiques and young kids looking sullen. I know I sound like an old fart here but I wish this place would have stayed a hidden locals hangout.

Recommends

Fl0werch1ld

Joined 4 years ago

Awesome pub. Have been loving this place for a long time! The very best rotating beer selection in town and my personal favorite fish and chips ever! perfectly cooked with cool slaw and big fat potato wedges..YUM. The people that work there are super friendly and work hard at making sure that you are having a good experience, it does get busy on the weekends and the service lags a bit but that because they have 1 too few wait staff on the floor for the number of chairs they need , so you must be patient but will be rewarded with an excellent beer.

Doesn't Recommend

brickcity

Joined 4 years ago

Staff is miserable. Upon entering the Horse Ass for my first time I had a good vibe and was admiring the English Themed neighborhood bar. I stood at the entrance or lobby area for good bit before I realized I haven't even heard a hello. That is when the obviously disgruntled employees come in to play, the whole ordering food and drink part where they are required to be friendly is certainly not a skill sought by management.

We had a large group on a Monday night and were in good spirits. A little loud at times and a lot of laughs. Never once did the staff ask what was the gathering for or anything that you would expect from a neighborhood bar. We did get evil stares from the barkeeps and the regulars too. Regulars? They regularly keep good money out of any establishment. One happened to scream f*** you to a girl there and this was after he made a sexist remark.

Total lame place. Don't go and waste your time. Hey, unless you do not like tipping, they prefer you don't tip.

Doesn't Recommend

Oregonian

Joined 4 years ago

Never Again. Cool atmosphere but horrible service! If you don't mind getting an eye roll every time you ask or order something this is the place for you. Majority of the people who work here seem like they hate there job and they are going to punish you for it. Our waitress was rude to us all night and we observed her doing the same to other customers. The employee's were very snotty too. When we left we told them we would not be returning and one of the staff members told us to F*ck off! How's that for service? So we just went down the street to the Triple Nickel where they were happy to give us great and friendly service. Don't waste your time at the Horse Brass. There are plenty of other bars in Portland that know something about service.