Blue Bird Tavern

What a shit hole… and here I am again. FML
Why? «Consider the source and lower your expectations» says Ms Stroh
Achieved.

good dive in St. John’s. It’s clean and no-​nonsense. Most patrons are regulars — and if you’re not you might get a good look up and down — or a hesitation on service. Not that you’re not welcome, but it’s suuuuuper regulars driven. So a new person stands out a bit.
I drank a Green Flash SoulStyle IPA, tasted clean and perfectly fresh.
Lottery, TV monitors, and the obligatory two types of folks
Young: hardly speaks, may have a headphone in, drinks Rainier Tall Boy or Boneyard IPA
Old: speaks a lot, knows every old codger in the bar, knows the bartender for the last forty years. Drinks a Budweiser, maybe a shot, or a Rainier or Pabst Tall Boy
Smoking tables outside.
No kitchen that I recall, but I did have some good steak when they hosted a Golf Tournament a couple years ago.
Lots of old pictures on the wall. Also, of interest — drink specials all day every two hours. Like shot of Fernet Branca $ 2.50 from 5p-​7pm. When I was there I think it was Crown Royal for $ 5.50. Something like that, anyway, pretty neat deal.
My pint of beer at 3pm was $ 3.50.

I was having a conversation about St John’s bars with another born-​and-​raised Portlander a week ago, and the Bluebird came up. He goes «man…the Bluebird is a REAL St John’s bar. Haha.»
Here’s what that means to people raised in and around St John’s: a «real» SJ bar is approximately a 60 – 40 split of old curmudgeonney drunks and questionable characters, and the other 40 percent are a mix of newer people, younger people and random people passing through. But the important part is the old curmudgeonney drunks. THAT, is the true spirit of a SJ bar. You want a PBR tall boy and an Old Crow? You better be prepared to have that conversation with the old dude next to you about how much he hates the new condo development blocking the St John’s bridge view. Going out to smoke? You better be prepared to discuss the fine art of brown-​bagging it in Pier Park without getting arrested. Wanna play pool? You’ll have to stare down the butch group of 30-​something girls who have been guarding the table for an hour, having claimed dives like the Bluebird as their new spot.
Yeah. This place is the tits. It’s not as noisy as Slims, the bartenders pour my beers just fine, and it invokes the true spirit of St John’s.

Your choices for old bars in St. Johns are plentiful. I don’t get to this part of town very often. Rarely. This was my first time out here in years. Years I tells ya. Walking around and really taking it all in on this visit showed me how many classic places there are here. Aside from bars you have old cafes and pastry shops. Things that Portland doesn’t have much of. They all seem to be here in St. Johns.
Blue Bird is one of those places. A locals hangout. We chose it because there was a table open outside. Simple as that. My date had a Jameson and ginger and she said it was quite heavy on the Jameson (a good thing). I had a beer. We sat outside. We listened to some of the chatter of the smokers near us. We smiled. Life was good. Life is good.