Spare Room Restaurant and Lounge

The Spare Room is a restaurant and entertainment venue with two bars in northeast Portland's Cully neighborhood, established in 1977 in a former bowling alley. The restaurant's daily menu features standard pub food and classic American cuisine for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.[1][2] The space has a large dance floor and hosts a variety of events, such as bingo for seniors, country–western dances, karaoke, and hard and indie rock concerts.[1][3] The Spare Room hosts a monthly event called "the Get Down", described by Willamette Week as a "soul, funk and R&B dance party that's almost too popular", as of 2018.[1] The venue also hosts "Sugar Town", described as one of the city's "most established inclusive dance nights" featuring a disc jockey who specializes in blues and soul music.[4]

The Spare Room was included in Portland Monthly's 2014 list of "Portland's Best Bars of the Moment".[5] In her 2016 overview of restaurants along Northeast 42nd Avenue in Cully, The Portland Mercury's Andrea Damewood described the venue as a place "where the magic happens" with "a hell of a karaoke setup".[3]

In 2018, Willamette Week described the venue as "an Old Portland icon that stands as the antithesis of New Portland's bougie homogeneity", with dim lights and inexpensive drinks.[1] The paper's Donovan Farley wrote, "The food is typical bar fare with a homey twist – think meatloaf and spaghetti dinners... Like a chilled-out and boozy Waffle House, the Spare Room also serves breakfast daily at 7 am, making it the rare establishment that's a great place to begin and end your day, provided you can do so while remaining employed."[1] Willamette Week also included the venue's "live-band karaoke experience", called "Karaoke from Hell", on their 2018 list of Portland's "best places to sing karaoke",[6] and the "Sugar Town" event in their list of the city's most "queer-centric" dance parties.[4]

• Official website
• "The Spare Room". The Portland Mercury.
• "Spare Room". Portland Monthly.