PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Ghouls and guests in search of a scary-good time in Portland have a new spot to check out in downtown Portland.
Raven’s Manor is a haunted mansion-themed cocktail lounge located on the corner of Southwest 1st Avenue and Southwest Oak Street. The spooky spot has plenty of tasty drinks and dishes, complete with some creep-tastic decor.
“We designed Raven’s Manor to be something where you walk in off the streets of Portland, you’re no longer in Portland — you are in this elegant, creepy-style manor and you get that from the cocktails to the food to even the elixir experience.” Raven’s Manor Co-owner Jared Bradley said.
Co-owner’s Jared Bradley and Rebecca Vega are the brains behind Raven’s Manor. In May, the two opened the haunted-themed bar in the more than century-old Henry Failing Building, which had formerly housed McCormick & Schmick’s and more recently the No Vacancy Lounge.
“We walked in here and we were like this is definitely the place that we want to do it,” Vega said. “It’s got the full-like structure already there. We just pretty much had to put our decor in.”
From eerie elixirs to screaming ghost-shaped beignets — it’s an experience some say is “to dine for.” Turning the place into a manor for the mad Doctor Raven, Bradley and Vega said they built much of the decor themselves during the pandemic.
“We actually planned to be open before the pandemic, so when the pandemic hit we were just like, ‘Well, let’s focus on more of the details,” added Bradley.
“The skull room we completely built that out ourselves. When we came here it was literally just the framing of a wall– didn’t even have drywall on it, so it’s just fun to see like what it was before into what we made it,” Vega said. “We built a ton of stuff and everything else pretty much we like thrifted or went to estate sales, bought from Facebook marketplace… It took us a lot of time to really find everything that we wanted.”
Chilled brain ice cream for dessert, anyone? Everything from the food to the drinks — all go with the spooky theme.
“Some drinks smoke, some catch on fire, or some change colors,” Bradley said.“We’ve got our own Grilled cheese of darkness, which is our house-made black bread with bleeding cheese and burgers with pentagrams on them.”
Raven’s Manor also offers an interactive elixir experience, in which guests search for clues, grab a lab coat and head to Dr. Raven’s basement laboratory to create custom cocktails.
“We want everything to be really interactive,” Vega said. “So, we encourage people to get up and walk around, take a look at everything — we just want it to be a comfortable space where people can hang out.”
Raven’s Manor is open from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m., Wednesday through Monday. Walk-ins are welcomed, or you can make a reservation online. A separate booking is needed to register for the Exlir Experience.
For more information about Raven’s Manor, click here.