The Green Room

Outstanding bar. Great atmosphere, fantastic drinks, reasonable prices, outstanding staff.

Green Room is the lower bar where you can chill and wait for a spot to open up at the Multnomah Whisk (e)y Library or just enjoy the bar as it is. Compared with other bars and pubs in the area, it does have a strong bottle selection for spirits, especially bourbon and American (though of course not as voluminous as the selection upstairs in the library. The staff are very well-​versed on the drink options as well as any sorts of new products that might fit your desired taste profile when looking for the right libation that night. Even if you’re not headed upstairs, this is still a great little bar to check out…

The Good: Picked a lucky night to stop in — Daniel Osborne was tending and it’s a treat to watch an expert at work. Between filling orders he was as engaging and informative as you could hope for. I forgot the name, but my drink had Cutty Sark Prohibition which makes a killer main ingredient. I never thought I’d be praising Cutty Sark (anything), but I had a glass of Prohibition neat after the cocktail and was really impressed. Not as a straight sip of Scotch, but what a fantastic base for mixing, very smooth and with a sweetness like caramel.
The Bad: The prices — seriously, this is a small bar that is a waiting room for a destination bar and they charge the same as MWL.

This bar is great. Even as a simple waiting room for MWL. Here’s how it goes:
MWL is near impossible to get in to, and very popular. If you’re game to wait, in the past you’d have to go elsewhere to have drinks and wait for «the call» from MWL to let you know that your seats are ready. Now you can wait here while enjoying some delicious cocktails and great service, and not have to close out somewhere else and slog over when you get the call.
The downsides? Well, I guess this space is fairly small. The main table is communal (but this allows for more seating), and the drink list is short. But that’s both a curse and a blessing, as every single one of the drinks on this menu is downright delicious. Especially the Stinger, a classic cognac and crème de menthe cocktail made with Park. Best stinger I’ve ever had, and I’ve had a few (mostly all bad).
The space itself is full of interesting green accents and décor. It’s a green room both in concept and execution. I dig the style. Cozy, bustling, communal and ripe for pre-​funking goodness. My favorite spot is the pair of leather chairs up in the window. A solid spot to kick back with a homie and have a libation.
I’ll even stop in to this bar with no intention of going in to MWL. The drinks are that good.

We found ourselves at the Green Room our first night on our trip to Portland. We wanted to check out the whiskey bar upstairs but regardless that it was an hour before closing there was a wait. So the Green Room it was.
They were clearly understaffed and it took a long time to be acknowledged. But once we ordered a beer, glass of wine and their incredible Tillamook grilled cheese that we split all was right in the world. The sandwich was oozing with delicious cheese in a nice buttery crispy bread. I would come back just for that grilled cheese.

Drinks were good but service was crap. We were treated fairly rudely when we walked in. We were seated downstairs and the waiters were more friendly and prompt at refilling our waters but we sat for close to an hour with empty glasses before we finally just asked for the bill. We would have gotten more drinks if they had bothered to come back to see if we wanted them. It was a Saturday night around 10 but it wasn’t overly crowded so I’m not sure what the problem was.
One of the best old fashioned’s I’ve had but I won’t come back due to our experience.

I went with my friends and we ended up here because the whiskey library was closed for an event. It’s a smaller space downstairs with obvious green décor and pretty artwork on the ceiling. Although I liked the community table I would get away with the green lamps which come in between you and the person sitting across from you. We had to move so we could see each other!
As far as service goes we are not whiskey connoisseurs but our server was patient with us and answered all our questions and made some good recommendations. If it was not her recommendation we wouldn’t have known that this awesome place Portland makes some pretty awesome whiskey! You should try it when you go there.
I felt that everything was great except the menu was a little short and those green lamps!!!

A nice little seat yourself waiting room for the Multnomah Whiskey Library. It has a decent collection of drinks. We tried some Cognac, some local Portland single malt (which till that moment I did not know existed) and some rum. The drinks were good.
Being a seat yourself and open seating place I can see why it can be hard to find a place here also and it can be a little disheartening overall. On the basis of the reading of the other reviews it looks like the staff is sometimes pretentious. I guess we were lucky and they were nice to us, maybe because we went on a slow night, Wednesday night. Will have to try on the hustle bustle weekends and see how this place fairs up.

Great atmosphere. Nice whiskeys but overpriced. Servers were pretentious. Bartender ignored us for a solid five minutes at an empty bar before taking our order. Go someplace else.

Finally, a waiting room for the Multonomah Whisk (e)y Library. No longer do you need to wait outside for hours to get in upstairs — you can now relax in the first come, first serve lounge (the best seats are the leather chairs in the front to your left as you enter). Not everyone sticks around to get upstairs but at least you can enjoy some great cocktails or local beers on tap including Crux Fermination Project’s Half Hitch. Definitely love the interior but it can get crowded. I wonder if this place becomes too popular to the point where another waiting room bar is created for this waiting room bar… only time will tell.