The Woodsman Tavern

4537 SE Division St, Portland
(503) 342-1122

Recent Reviews

A.B. B.

Slow and casual for happy hour on a Wednesday around 4:30. A good time to try some of their drafts, at $3 for an 8oz pour. I enjoyed sampling the hibiscus sour and a half dozen oysters on the half shell ($16 for HH). Due to an error or miscommunication, I was served a bonus house-style egg salad sandwich as well. 20% automatic gratuity is included in the bill, which I don't think encourages outstanding customer service.

Atmosphere: 4

Food: 5

Service: 3

Recommended dishes: Oysters on the Half Shell

Paige Morkner

We love coming here! It’s out neighborhood spot for me and my partner. The food it top notch and changes seasonally which is refreshing and interesting for us to try new things. Their pastry chef is inventive, and they are always coming up with interesting and tasty new cocktails. Would very much recommend for a date night, and it’s always where we take our parents when they come in to town to visit! We have been for brunch too and always delicious!

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

winter pemberton

My one star is for the check out. We were a 2 top on a slow Sunday evening and were charged an automatic 20% gratuity with no verbal warning. I almost double tipped because the gratuity was a line item along with the food and it looked like a normal credit card slip with a tip option. I mentioned this to the hostess on the way out and she was unapologetic and said” well, it says this on the menu!”. Who reads the fine print on a menu? And who expects an automatic gratuity on a 2 top? NOT COOL.

Atmosphere: 4

Food: 4

Service: 1

Marjorie Bailey

I love this place so much. It’s my favorite neighborhood spot. I always get the oysters, and I’ve yet to have something I didn’t like. Dianna is my favorite server, she’s a total gem. Service is always fantastic and welcoming. Thanks for being so great woodsman!

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Elliot Rivera

Had a late dinner tonight about an hour before closing with my partner and had such a friendly welcoming experience from start to finish and the food was delicious! We got the 3 dips, the fish and chips, as well as two cocktails and everything was delicious! Loved the general vibe of the place. The bathroom was also lovely. I loved the fact that they had a great smelling candle in it. Our server was also amazing! Definitely will be back soon!

Recommended dishes: Fries, Fish and Chips

Michelle McMillan

Service amazing, food bomb af, really well-balanced drinks, reasonably priced, kind humans. I genuinely don’t get why other reviews are complaining about the gratuity being automatically added.. they make sure we see it so we aren’t surprised, and honestly they deserve more. Highly recommend!

David White

They no longer offer a steak, but the their own website menu still lists it. pork chop was good but over priced with watery bbq flavored sauce. They don't take cash. There is a mandatory 20% service fee (I was a party of 1). I tip well, but a mandatory service charge is bs. either put it in your food prices or let me tip based on quality of service. I wont be back and wont recommend.

Atmosphere: 4

Food: 2

Service: 2

Phil S.

First time = Last time. Arrived for happy hour (2ppl) and server was some old unfriendly grandma. I mean just blah. No greeting no nothing. As we ordered I noticed bottom of menu says they automatically ADD F@#$ing 20%!! No F' way will we ever go back. Tipping should be based on Service not some automatic ADD ON. HH $14 Smash burger was ok but you can get better one at smash burger food cart for $5. Fish sandwich was good but greasy AF. Sorry but this new trend of automatic 20% gratuity is plain rude, post Covid or not. And the saddest part....when grandma brought the bill (w/20% added) she marked the receipt line for "additional tip! OMFG....We laughed and left post haste.

Amanda Best

I’m pretty bummed by this place. It’s so close to my house but is just so expensive for such basic bad quality. I went here for happy hour expecting happy hour oysters which they said they had on their website. My friend and I specifically came to get oysters and when I didn’t see them on the happy hour menu I asked the server about it. When I told them that the website was misleading she responded by saying “there’s a lot of things on the website that aren’t true”. It felt snarky. I then ordered a happy hour cocktail (the bourbon peach tea) and it was so out of balance, really tart and sour with no tea or peach notes. We got onion dip which was just laughably small. I just don’t understand how this place has 4.4 stars.

Richard Davis

Reasonably priced cocktails and great service, but I ordered what was advertised as a braised steak and oyster mushroom pie and recieved a minced meat and crimini mushroom pie. For $28, I was a little shocked and extremely disappointed. Just call it a mince meat and mushroom pie and charge less if you are having supply issues.

Atmosphere: 3

Food: 1

Service: 5

Steve Miller

My wife and I dined at the bar a few months ago and had a great time! So…we decided to go again, this time bringing four other guests with us based on our first experience. We were seated promptly as we had reservations and we were greeted quickly with water by our first waiter. That is where the excellent service ended. Once we were served water, we started looking over the drink menu and quickly asked what we would like to drink, we needed a little more time to decide. The little bit of time turned into 10 minutes but whatever, maybe they ran into an issue elsewhere in the restaurant. Once we placed our drinks it was another 10+ minutes to get our drinks, it wasn’t very busy at all and appeared to have quite a bit of wait staff on the floor. When they brought our drinks, our first waiter took our appetizer order and made a good recommendation on the fritters. The appetizers came out quite fast and the fritters were pretty good. By now we were finished with our drinks spent a good 20+ minutes on the appetizers and no one had checked on us to see if we wanted more drinks or entrees! Finally my wife gets up and goes to find someone and a different waiter came to take our drink order and entree order. It took roughly 20 minutes to get our drinks and two of them were wrong. We took the incorrect drinks since we didn’t want to wait another possible 20 minutes. Shortly after, our entrees came out, the burgers were great (they make an awesome burger), the steak frites were small (one was cold), the pork chop was small and underwhelming. By now our drinks were empty again and no one came to check on us. We ate, chatted, looked around seeing if our waiter (not sure who our waiter was at this point) was near. We were there about 2.5 hours, only offered 2 drinks and one round we had to go find someone. A 3rd waiter asked if we would like anything else and we declined as we were not going to spend another dime in the restaurant. Then our first waiter showed up with dessert menus, we declined and asked for our check. My brother mentioned to our waiter our disappointment with our experience/service. We had 3 different waiters at our table over the course of our visit. Then the bill came, we always just split it evenly among the number of couples. We give them our 3 cards and waited for our receipts. Our waiter then returns and says “the bar forgot to add some drinks to our check and will have to redo it.” Which we said okay. They ran our cards, it was about 170 per couple which included the automatic 20% tip. As we were signing our receipts, the GM came over and apologized for the dissatisfaction and offered to remove a round of drinks from our tab. We declined as we don’t expect free things/handouts and they already ran our cards. No need to spend extra time and try to give things away in return of poor performance. The automatic 20% gratuity is a money grab to me, there is no reason to try to provide exceptional service if you already know you will get 20%. Overall, we laughed it off at the next establishment we went to! Although a very poor experience we didn’t let it ruin our night!

Richard F.

Came here with some friends on a recommendation for their burgers. What We Had:- 2 Burgers (1 w/ bacon) & fries- 2 glass cokes- Appetizer dips (1 pimento, 1 French onion, 1 white bean)Pros:- Nice decor at the long wooden table we sat at- Burgers were well done. Smash burger variety. Double patty- Dips were $9 each but 3 for $24. The table didn't want the bean one but they gave it to us for free. Cons:- Would have been nice to have tap soda for refills but also I probably shouldn't have more than 1Overall:Staff was very nice and accommodated our additional people at the last moment. Tavern is tucked right into a cute neighborhood in the Richmond area. Would come back to try other items.

Katelin Brewer

We brought an out of town guest here and had a not so great experience after having enjoyed a happy hour very much. It was so dark at our table. We were not welcomed by the server for 10 minutes after we sat down even though we had a reservation. The appetizers arrived with the main courses which all arrived before the drinks. Then there was the 22% gratuity included. Nope. I have worked in restaurants and this was terrible service. I'm not coming back with a group. Happy hour? Maybe. But not a larger party where I care about timing or seeing anything!

BJ D.

The best brunch place in Portland. The entire menu from the cocktails, the breakfasts, and the sweets are guaranteed delicious. If I could, I'd eat here everyday of my life. Save room for dessert!

Cassandra C.

This was the new brunch standard. We shared some small plates, had a brunch drink and each had a main and everything was a hit. The bloody Mary has a proprietary mix that includes clamato. It was fantastically thick and peppery. Served with a bamboo noodle type straw I immediately dispatched. We started with oysters, the grapefruit, and fritters. During my first sips, I opted to add the scotch egg "back" to the bloody. I have made scotch eggs and had them at a Scottish place in Oregon city and this was the benchmark the others fell short of. The breading had a crispy snap, the sausage was firm and the egg was jammy but set. Perfect scotch egg. The grapefruit is listed with streusel but this means golden grahams here and I'm not mad about it. This was the one thing I thought I could try to make at home. I couldn't have conceived the idea (I thought I didn't like grapefruit) but with the idea, I think I could replicate it, if my produce were as ripe and juicy as theirs. My only suggestion would be to serve with a spoon, if not a grapefruit spoon. It was messy to hack at with a fork and the included bread type knife. Oysters were medium brine, served with a mini spoon, lemon and a mignonette. The fritters were cheesy, light and addictive. I feel like they were dredged in tempura, the breading was very light and crispy without dripping oil, a more dry breading. For our mains, we had a fry-tatta (I think it had oyster in it? I didn't try it) and the soft eggs on toast. By this point I was feeling the effects of all our prior trespasses and enjoyed maybe half the eggs. The eggs were mixed with boursin, pepperoncinis and chives. I also ordered a side of bacon that was perfect, not too dry or crispy but also not overly wet and fatty. I enjoyed everything I put in my mouth. I love a brunch menu that mixes and matches small bites you can share. I'll be back!Everyone seated around us at 12p had the burger so I'd prob give that a go next time, it seemed like the thing to order but the brunch menu was a fun mix of sweet and salty.

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