Portland street art at intersection between Belmont and Hawthorne
Here’s a little post on our day trip to Portland. We have heard so many things about this city in the past few years in terms of it having a cutting-edge cultural scene that we had to check it out for ourselves.
We left early on Sunday morning and rented a car blocks from our hotel. After sitting down for a quick breakfast at Whole Foods (really, more neighbourhood grocery stores should have a breakfast bar) we hit the road at 9 a.m.
It took us three hours to get there – there seemed to be a lot of traffic for a Sunday morning. We had somewhat planned our itinterary, using mainly a past issue of Xl8r8 magazine that featured a city guide to Portland and some suggestions from our favourite websites.
Portland is divided into the east and west by the Willamette and Columbia rivers. First stop was on the west Side at Powell’s Books (1005 W Burnside), which all guides we consulted said was a must-visit. And it was (although The World’s Biggest Bookstore in Toronto comes a close second). There was one huge wall devoted to craft which I hardly had time to touch. I did manage to pick up one of the eat.shop guide books to Portland, the Japanese-inspired book Problem Solving 101 by Ken Watanabe and some other books.
There was also a quick stop to Jackpot Records (203 SW 9th Ave.), Everyday Music (1313 W. Burnside) (pictured above) and Frances May (1013 SW Washington St.) clothing boutique.
Two things are for sure: Portland is not very driver-friendly but it is very indie shop friendly. There were narrow streets and pretty much every road was a one way, even for major streets, which had us turning lots of corners in our rental car trying to find a street that went in the opposite direction. Maybe this was a way to encourage patronage of small businesses? (The city has zoned out any big-box chains to the outer parts of Portland).
We crossed one of Portland’s many bridges to get over to the east side where apparently most of the the ‘good stuff’ was. The streets are lined with a mish mash of indie stores with bright colourful signs and storefronts. After driving around for a bit, J and I sat down for a drink at McMenamins (beside the Bagdad Movie Theatre, 3702 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd., pictured above), one of the few chains on the west coast that takes older heritage buildings and renovates them into drinking establishments with character.
Some of the shops we visited in the Hawthorne/Belmont neighbourhoods included Presents of Mind (3633 SE Hawthorne Blvd), one of Portland’s favourite gift shops.
We also dropped by:
Anthem Records (828 SE 34th Ave # C)
Elsa + Sam (4314 SE Hawthorne Blvd.), which features gorgeous handpainted/silskcreened ceramics
And Noun: A Person’s Place for Things (3300 SE Belmont St.), a wonderful shop which features vintage furniture, housewares and jewellery. We also chatted with Thomas, one of the owners who, along with his partner Stephanie, balance running the store with full time day jobs.
One place I was disappointed not to check out was Portland’s (in)famous Goodwill stores The Bins - a thrift store with potential, almost too much potential (let’s just say you have to wear rubber gloves to go through some of the stuff). Not so much visiting for the thrifting but to see the spectacle/chaos that ensures there.
We concluded the day with dinner on the patio at a local Thai restaurant (the restaurant everyone raved about – Tuk Tuk (4239 NE Fremont St.) – was closed on Sundays) with our Portland-based, Seattle-raised friend Taureen. We talked about Portland’s lifestyle, the weather, it’s high unemployment rate, its recent surge in popularity and what it’s done to the city, its creative and cultural scenes, his love for Montreal and all things French. It was a nice way to end our day trip.