One of our goals when we moved to Kennebunk, Maine, was finding a trivia night we could go to regularly. We figured that if we focused on places near or in the Portland area, we’d do well.
After trying several trivia nights at bars, restaurants and even one public library, here’s what I can tell you: you want to participate in a trivia night run by a company called Game Time Trivia, now Raise the Bar Trivia. They are, by far, the best trivia company around.
They travel all around the Portland area each week, bringing the trivia game to pizza places, brew pubs and even a speakeasy in Portland. Raise the Bar trivia nights are also in Southern New Hampshire and the North Shore of Massachusetts, outside Boston. But I’m focusing on pub trivia nights in Southern Maine only.
Where to find trivia nights near Portland
Game Time Trivia/Raise the Bar Trivia literally runs a pub quiz trivia night six nights a week in Maine. Right now, their pub trivia is in the following places, listed in alphabetical order:
- Eliot
- Kennebunk
- Kittery
- Ogunquit
- Portland
- Sanford
- Scarborough
- South Berwick
- Wells
On some nights you have just one option in York or Cumberland counties. Other nights, you’ll have many more options. Not surprisingly, you’ll find the most opportunities to play trivia in legit Portland, with four different days and places. The next most common location for trivia night is Kennebunk.
My husband and I started playing trivia with neighbors last summer. Every Thursday you could find us at the Feile Irish Pub. We learned quickly to get there early so we had time to enjoy dinner, because we really enjoyed the food.
Duffy’s Tavern in Kennebunk also has trivia on Thursdays. We ended up in Wells because people wanted to try someplace new. And it just stuck.
Over the holidays, when our daughters were visiting, we tried trivia at Federal Jack’s in Kennebunk. Our daughters, 26 and 28, love trivia, and our 26-year-old plays on a pub trivia team in Pittsburgh where she’s attending graduate school.
Boy, were we lucky to have them with us. It was only the second time that our trivia team won the night. I’m sure it helped that an entire round was about Taylor Swift songs and my daughters are definitely Swifties.
What it’s like playing pub quiz trivia
I’m sure that everyone’s experience playing pub quiz trivia differs. For example, before we discovered Game Time Trivia/Raise the Bar Trivia, we were content to fill out a basic, boring answer sheet of answers to random questions about history and geography.
However, then our friend Patty took us to the Feile Irish Pub for trivia night. I knew trivia was fun — I’m a devout “Jeopardy” watcher. I never realized just how much fun it could be.
Every week, Game Time Trivia/Raise the Bar Trivia’s host comes prepared with worksheets, random pictures, a name-that-tune round. There’s even a pregame round before the game officially starts.
When our daughters were in town, here was the pregame trivia worksheet. It included identifying the four people in the picture, who all had “Jan” in their name somehow.
All told, there are eight rounds of trivia. They are organized with a nod towards football:
- Pregame
- First quarter
- Second quarter
- Halftime
- Third quarter
- Fourth quarter
- Two-minute warning
- Hail Mary
Halftime is the name-that-tune-like round. One night was all ’80s music and this MTV-generation GenXer knew every song. Also, you get extra points if you know the artist, too. I did.
One of my favorite rounds is Third Quarter, which is a themed picture puzzle, if you will. You need to identify all of the items shown that are somehow connected.
For example, this past summer on trivia night we had to decipher all of the frozen treats in the picture above. I was the only one who knew the Cookie Puss cake from Carvel — thank you, Beastie Boys for your “Cookie Puss” song from 1983, the year I graduated high school.
The whole game usually lasts between 90 minutes and two hours. You’ll have so much fun you won’t even realize that much time has gone by.
Places to play pub trivia near Portland
Below we’ve created a chart, with a map, of all of the places in Portland, Maine and the surrounding towns that have Game Time Trivia/Raise the Bar Trivia. Sometimes the company changes nights or locations. If that happens, I’ll be sure to update things accordingly.
I’m hoping to find other trivia nights near me that are worth adding to this list or in a separate article. Of course, if you know of a company or bar or restaurant doing trivia as well as Game Time Trivia/Raise the Bar Trivia, please let me know. I’d love to try them out firsthand.