Jo Rotisserie & Bar

Our best dinner in Portland. Amazing flavors. Not too pricy. Great service and nice ambiance. My crab linguine were fantastic. The asparagus and salmon bisque was unbelievable. You need to try it!

The simplest of food… bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich… don’t expect much right? Wrong. This was the best one I had ever had… ever! Cozy atmosphere, old school but great.

OK my daughter is a bartender here so I am a little biased! This little bar has awesome happy hour, fun creative cocktails and a very loyal cliental that the employees great with familiarity.
The food is very well prepared, and service is excellent. Its a bit hidden right next to Papa Hayden’s, its a really cool relaxed place to hang out and relax.

This place is great with friendly bartenders and good food. Highly recommend the margarita pizza or the burger for happy hour.

I was quite impressed by this bar. It was a first time for me and let me just say, delicious desserts. Located right next to papa Hayden and absolutely worth it for desserts and drinks at a reasonable price. I ordered the whiskey crème brûlée, one of my friends ordered the mud pie and the other ordered the warm chocolate lava cake. They were all delectable and wonderful. The mud pie was hands down the best and not over the top or too rich. Coming in second was the crème brûlée and then the chocolate cake with raspberry sauce. The chocolate cake was delicious, but very rich and heavy and not easy for my friend to finish. After a big dinner, I was able to finish my crème brûlée and hot toddy with ease.
So good! My mouth is watering on a soon return!

I came here for my birthday a few months ago and because of usual college life and plans changing around often I had to call and change my reservations a couple of times, but the workers were all very understanding and helped to fix my reservation as many times as I needed them to be changed.
When I first got to the restaurant the first thing that struck me about the restaurant was its ambience. It was a very chill and comfortable area to just sit around and share a couple of drinks and some food with friends.
It was my first time going to the restaurant and so I was very excited to try the Jo Burger after reading about it from other Unilocal reviews. So I ordered that along with a pear ginger martini. I think it was because I came in with such high expectations regarding the burger but I felt that the food did not exactly hit the quality that I had set for it when I first stepped foot into the restaurant. It seemed drier than I would have liked and was also quite spendy. However, the ginger pear martini was absolutely delicious.
Finally, though we were seated near the front of the restaurant, service was a bit slow but our server was very kind and helpful.
All in all, though I’m not sure if I’ll ever be back, Jos was a nice addition to my birthday night.

Long wait for a very mushy 4 cheese pizza and soup of the day that tasted like a can of Campbell’s tomato soup. Not impressed.

I’ve been meaning to give this restaurant a 5 star review. forever! been loving this place for 20 years. best happy hour ever. always amazing oysters on the half shell, a beautiful craft cocktail menu and consistently always amazing service every time. I took 2 different friends there yesterday, whom had never been. they were so impressed.
this is definitely one of the best restaurants on 23^rd. if you’re considering checking this place out. you really don’t want to miss out.
thank you Jo Bar. for always being consistent and for great service.

I have never noticed this place on 23^rd but it’s worth checking out. They have a really good Cobb salad on their happy hour menu for $ 5. All of the other food I saw coming out looked great too. I’ll definitely be going there again for happy hour.
All of the wait staff were very nice and helpful. Check it out if you’re in the area.

Live music on a Sunday afternoon. Nice atmosphere. Mimosa and Cobb salad were perfect to fuel an afternoon of exploring the alphabet district. Clean restaurant. Fairly priced food. I would definitely recommend this place. Great place to dine or grab a few drinks!

I visited Jo’s on a trip to Portland looking to have a drink and appetizer. They post their menu on the door outside and I was curious about their fondue so my friend and I went in. The layout of Jo’s provides seating areas that make you feel closed off from the restaurant at large. My friend and I were led to semi circular booth that faces away from the restaurant and faces the small stage where a band later began to play some Latin music. Though we felt secluded, we liked having our own space in which to wind down after a long day of travel and city exploration.
I ordered the white sangria and the cheese fondue to share with my friend. They use fontina and gorgonzola for their melted cheese mix and serve it with apples, baguette and cauliflower. The apples on baguette dipped in cheese was definitely a winning combo though I was initially skeptical about the use of gorgonzola as it’s a pretty strong cheese. It continues tonimpress me, however, with dishes like these. The cauliflower was ok too. We asked for extra bread and apple slices as we had a lot more cheese left than we did dipping material and ended up getting charges $ 1 and some change for about 5 thin slices of apples which seemed a bit unnecessary. nThe white sangria was tasty and wasn’t overly sweet as some white sangrias tend to be.
The one aspect of our experience here that I would want to change would have to be the service. I often felt forgotten by our waitress and the charge for extra slices of apples put us off. It took quite a while for both our drinks and food to arrive and the place wasn’t packed at all. I liked the ambience at Jo’s and the fact that they have live music but their service could use some work. Hopefully this service experience isn’t representative of the restaurant’s service as a whole as Jo’s was one of the more appealing restaurant’s on this block.

Jo Bar is hip, classic, casual, and unpretentous. We loved the special Latin inspired Brunch menu and the Latin Rhythem of Mario Sandoval Trio. I have visited Jo Bar on two other occasions for Happy Hour and Jazz. Well, the first Jazz was kínd of quasi Jazz with blues and whatnot vocals mixed in. This time, the Mario Sandoval Trio was fantastic and perfect accomanyment to our Brunch and nothing quasi about it.
We had a great server. He was friendly, attentive. I wasnt sure if I should order the burger and beer or the special brunch menu. His enthusiastic recommendation for the Chile Relleno had me order that instead. We also ordered the Huevos Rancheros and Ahi Ceviche. It was all delicious.

My husband and I just went to Portland for the first time and we were walking around 23^rd Ave. We stumbled across a few places, but ultimately decided to give this one a try. The atmosphere of the restaurant was cute and the music matched the ambiance. We JUST missed the live trio. We sat in once of the booths, and I actually found it somewhat uncomfortable. But the food definitely made up for that!
We started with the Fondue. It was extremely delicious! The fondue itself was perfect: creamy, cheesy, warm. The seasonal vegetable we got was cauliflower; which was super fresh and cooked just the right amount. The was a baguette was delicious as well, and the apple slices were very fresh. The best part though– this is the first fondue I’ve ordered where I didn’t have to worry about running out of fondue and skimp out a bit when dipping. There was a very generous amount of fondue. We were able to slather on a good amount of cheese on every bite, and still had extra to spoon out afterwards.
For my entrée, I ordered the Jo burger. It was mouth-​watering god. The bun was very fresh and went perfect with burger. The beef was cooked exactly how I wanted. I like my burgers cooked medium (just a small amount of pink), and they are almost always cooked well-​done. This burger was cooked absolutely perfect. It was super juicy and tender. My only issue was it was pretty darn messy. There was a lottttt of grease/​fat dripping off; my plate was full of beef juice. The other reason for the 1 star reduction was I found that my salad had wayyy too much dressing on it.
My husband ordered the Cubano Sandwich and seemed to really enjoy it as well, though I did not try it.
I would definitely recommend this place and would definitely go back!

I came here for the Happy hour and it was good. I had the fondue the cheese was excellent and came with apple slices, bread and veggies (green beans this time) I had cheese left over so asked for more bread which they brought.
The service was a bit slow and overworked.
The space looks great, with nice art. My biggest grip is with the bar stools, I can’t remember ever setting at a bar with less comfortable seating. Everyone was a bit slumped over. Really this is a three and a half star review because of this. I will probably be back, but I will sit at a table.

Great place! Came in during Happy Hour, fabulous small plates and specialty house cocktails!
There were no disappointments in anything we ordered, from the pork tacos to the Pad Thai ravioli off the happy hour menu to the fried calamari and pizza off the regular bar menu. Jo Rotisserie & Bar has a completely separate kitchen from their parent Papa Haydns, but the quality remains excellent!
We came in at around 5:30 on a Thursday and sat five people at the bar counter, and we’re glad we saved seats for our stragglers because the place quickly filled up! Great staff too, bartenders were very attentive and knowledgeable and they had an extensive wine list to add to the great drinks available.
Started during with deals and ended the evening with full price items and the check was a beyond reasonable. We were glad to have stopped in :)

I eat here the same way I fight karate style or attempt to hold my girlfriend’s ankle… sweating and using both hands. She weighs in at about 350, which is coincidentally the same amount of cents I spent on a happy hour appetizer! It would make more sense if I paid in pounds but what am I gonna get rotisserie to go, buy three tickets to London (my special lady takes two seats) and then convert my hard earned USD to £s?!? That’d be an absolutely terrible use of my vacation days, other than eating that tasty chicken at 30,000 feet where only eagles soar.
After wrestling apart a half rotisserie chicken like the Hulkster I was like a college co-​ed after a frat party, stuffed and carrying my heels home.

This is more of a 3.5 star review.
Fun location to eat outside and people watch. Cocktails and food were delicious as expected!
We’re big service people and there just seemed to lack some of that here.
Maybe our server was just having a bad day but it flowed into our experience and brought the whole mood down some.
I don’t like waiting long periods between one order of drinks to the next or to food. Could’ve ordered twice as many drinks but didn’t feel like staying here since we only saw her maybe twice every hour that passed.
We might give it another shot since the food and drinks were tasty and the other male server seemed to give us really nice information regarding their menu when we flagged him down.
Oh well.

My wife and I were in town for a wedding. We were looking for nice place for lunch and happened upon JO Rotisserie and Bar. I was craving salmon and the salmon entrée looked fantastic. We were seated outside on a lovely day. The waiter was knowledgeable about the wine list and guided us to a nice glass of rose. The food was great. My salmon entrée was everything I was looking for. Great layering of flavors from the various components. My wife ordered a salad and the pâté appetizer. The pâté was enough to share. Overall an excellent choice for lunch and has been added to our must visit list when we return to Portland.

I normally love this place when I come to visit Portland. This time was not as great. Service was a little slower than usual, and my French Onion soup was lukewarm at best and somewhat bland. I had to add salt and pepper to get it to taste better. I’m sure it being luke warm had something to do with it too. The server never even asked how anything was at any point, and after getting the soup she didn’t stop by for at least 15 minutes, so I ended up just eating part of it and waiting for the rest of the food to arrive (which was better). Hopefully next time will be a better experience when I’m back in town.

Portland, OR: A day later and can’t stop thinking about the salmon I had yesterday. Sincerely one of the best meals I’ve had in a while and all I’ve been doing in Portland is eating my heart out.
This place deserves higher ratings: the ambience is lovely, the food incredible, and the service impeccable.

This is a solid choice if you’re looking for good food, good drinks, and a nice but low key atmosphere. The Cubano is awesome, the caper sauce on the burger is mouth watering, and last time we were there they had beef cheek that made me want to sing. This is refined down home cooking, you won’t be disappointed.

I’m not often homesick for New York, but Jo Bar is a sweet, intimate spot for a date that reminds me of some of my favorite haunts back east. The Moroccan Coffee is my favorite drink, and not just because it appeals to my inner Beavis with how much fire the bartender needs to make it. I’m itching to replicate their delicious bruschetta in my kitchen, but I love what they have here in the mean time. One of the waitresses recognized me and my SO a few months after our first visit and you usually don’t get that kind of service. She was also able to mix me a drink that cured an upset stomach and for that I’m endlessly grateful. If you need a break from family packed 23^rd St and need a dark, jazzy, quiet place to curl up with a drink and your sweetheart among other adults, Jo Bar’s worth the visit.

Stopped in here last night and had dinner outside. The atmosphere is relaxing and our server was friendly.
We ordered some steamed clams, a salad and ravioli. Portions were large enough to be filling but no so large that you feel heavy after the meal. Washed it down with some of their rotating taps and finished it off with some macaroons.
Everything was tasty and the outside seating is located in a great area for people watching.
Definitely worth a visit.