How to Spend a Saturday in Downtown Portland

Let's say you're passing through town only briefly - for business, for a friend's wedding, as a pitstop between San Francisco and Seattle - and you only have a day to learn the lay of Portland's land. What do you do?

Welcome to PDX (says the White Stag)

My short answer: Waterfront Park and the Saturday Market, Portland's living room, Powell’s, some good food, and – time permitting – walking around the Pearl. Allow me to elaborate.

First, you should eat something. 

This is, after all, what one does in Portland.

Downtown has a number of “hot” as well as classic Portland restaurants. For breakfast, consider Bijou Cafe (132 SW 3rd Ave; no website), an early entrant on the Portland breakfast scene that serves excellent, largely local, largely organic breakfast and brunch dishes. Two other classic Portland restaurants serve consistently high quality brunches and lunches: the Veritable Quandry (with delightful patio seating; reservations recommended) and the Heathman (very classic Portland; reservations probably smart).

For “new” Portland (read: longer wait and no reservations), try Kenny and Zuke’s, a more industrial space with New York deli-style plates (they smoke and cure their own meats – including fabulous pastrami – and their bagels are above average). And the famous/infamous Tasty n' Sons, the unofficial King of Portland's popular brunch scene with the two-hour waits to prove it, has recently opened a second outpost right downtown, the aptly named Tasty n' Alder (it's on Alder).

Do do that voodoo that you do so well.

Or, if you really like lines, there’s always the downtown outlet of Voodoo Doughnuts. Now, I love a good doughnut – but I refuse to stand in line for more than 5 minutes for one. But Voodoo Doughnuts has rapidly become a Portland institution, and standing in line at the downtown store has become something of a Portland institution as well. So I leave the decision to you.

For a "new" Portland lunch, there’s Little Bird, a French-style bistro that the Oregonian named Portland’s restaurant of the year in 2012. For something a bit simpler, Bunk Sandwiches next door has a big following (these are the kind of sandwiches that white people like). Or there's the Alpine cuisine of Gruner (sometimes inconsistent, but when it's good, it's really good). 

Of course there are the ubiquitous food cart pods – downtown, most notably at 11th and Alder, 5th and Stark, and 3rd and Washington. Bear in mind that the best food carts tend not to open downtown on the weekends – if your heart is set on food carts, head to the Saturday Market (see below).

Sample ubiquitous food cart pod.

Then you might want to stretch your legs. 

How else can you justify your next meal? Regardless of the need for exercise or excuse for further eating, I highly recommend walking through at least part of Tom McCall Waterfront Park. Back in the day, Waterfront Park was an expressway  clogged with cars – now it’s a mile-long stretch of riverfront park that makes for excellent people watching on warm summer evenings.

Eastside Easplanade

For an easy (mostly flat) two-mile loop, you can walk the length of Waterfront Park, walk across the pedestrian level of the Steel Bridge (the pointy black one), walk the opposite side of the river on the Eastside Esplanade (with the best views of Portland’s skyline), and return back across the Hawthorne Bridge (the pointy green one). I run or bike part of this loop almost every day.

Throughout the summer months (indisputably the best time to visit Portland anyway), there is almost always some festival or another going on at the south end of Waterfront Park. Right now (early June) is the biggie: the Rose Festival. Other highlights include the Oregon Brewer's Festival (end of July) and my personal favorite, the Waterfront Blues Festival, always held over the 4th of July weekend. There's nothing like live blues outside on a languid summer evening to make all the world slow down.

At the northern end of Waterfront Park, from April through December, you should at least stroll through the classic Saturday Market where local artisans sell their handmade, prototypically crunchy-hippie crafts (pottery, chunky jewelry, woodworking, soaps, natural-fiber clothes, bird feeders, windchimes). In the summer, this is an excellent people-watching scene. 

You probably don’t want to miss: 

Powell's: the good lord's answer to a rainy day.

Portland’s most famous landmark is a bookstore. Powell’s stretches across a couple interconnected warehouses in a maze of rooms (designed to get you lost) overflowing with new and used books. Try to imagine finding a book back in the day before they had a computerized catalog of what’s in stock. 

You might want to pick up a map when you enter, and always set a meeting time and place with your touring colleagues (trust me). For fellow bargain hunters, I am a big fan of Powell’s sales tables, clustered around the two main entrances.

You should also walk through Pioneer Courthouse Square, “Portland’s Living Room.” Thirty-plus years ago, it was a fairly revolutionary concept to tear down a building on prime real estate and replace it with a public plaza simply so people can hang out. This is where our Christmas Tree stands, where Portlanders ring in the new year, and where mini-concerts and film screenings fill up the summer months. 

Pioneer Courthouse, its square, and flowers that *heart* Portland.

Our favorite, little-known, free Portland sightseeing hint: Pop into Pioneer Courthouse (right next to Pioneer Courthouse Square, surprisingly enough), which is open to the public on weekdays if you’re willing to show some ID and go through the metal detectors. Work your way upstairs to the copula (seen in the picture above), where you can get a bird’s-eye view of the Square and bus mall. A few blocks away, at Third and Salmon, the new federal courthouse also has a lovely public patio overlooking downtown on its ninth floor (more security screening and government-issued ID required).

Peace in the park blocks.

From Pioneer Courthouse Square, it's only a few blocks south to the South Park Blocks, a long stretch of leafy trees and quiet park benches in the midst of the city. The Portland Art Museum sits right at the start of the Park Blocks and has a good collection of (very) contemporary art. And in between Pioneer Courthouse Square and the South Park Blocks is Director Park, a new-ish plaza with plentiful cafe tables, a life-sized chess set, and a fountain for kids to splash around in.

Then set off to explore Portland's neighborhoods. 

What makes Portland great is its distinct neighborhoods. Right downtown, the Pearl District (basically everything north of Burnside and west of Broadway) epitomizes the yuppie side of new Portland: fifteen years ago, almost nothing was down here, but now it is an urban planner’s paradise of loft apartments, trendy stores, and fancy gelato shops. 

The Pearl backs right up to Powell’s on the bookstore’s north side. If you get tired of poking around galleries and upscale shops, the Pearl is chock-a-block with fancy restaurants (Andina is the best of the bunch), or if you’re hankering for a big juicy burger, stop by Little Big Burger for the best cheap burger you've ever had (think In-n-Out Burger, but higher quality ingredients). The Pearl is also home to the city's largest brewpubs, making it perfect for a low-key microbrew crawl.

From the Pearl, you can hop on the streetcar (which runs down 10th and 11th Avenues) to NW 23rd. This lovely neighborhood is buzzing on sunny Saturday afternoons – I would compare it to a scaled-down version of Boston’s Newbury Street. Near the streetcar stop is the wildly popular Salt & Straw, purveyors of creative ice cream flavors, and the nearly as popular Bamboo Sushi, “the first certified, sustainable sushi restaurant in the world” (they say). In fact, NW 23rd and NW 21st are packed with trendy restaurants, making this a great place for lunch or dinner.

If you are entertaining kids: 

Director Park: kid-friendly.

There’s story time pretty much every day at my favorite downtown spot (nerd alert), the Multnomah County Library. If you are willing to go a bit further afield, you can take the MAX (lightrail) to the Oregon Zoo - a nicely landscaped, above-average zoo that is particularly pleasant on a sunny summer day – or find your way to OMSI on the east bank of the river. OMSI (the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) is a much-beloved hands-on science museum, complete with a submarine and an IMAX theater. For younger ones, the Children’s Museum – located next to the Zoo – might be a better option for a hands-on learning and play experience.

If you are feeling adventurous: 

Two classic Portland experiences are right on the edge of downtown but require a bit of finesse to reach with public transit. 

Portland’s International Rose Test Garden is a swath of spectacular roses (best in June and July) overlooking downtown Portland. This is a prototypical Portland spot as well as a fabulous place for a picnic. The Japanese Gardens are also next door: though not free, this is one of the best Japanese gardens outside Japan. (Take the #83 bus from downtown.)

And then there’s Forest Park: a huuuuuuuge, well, forested park with miles and miles of hiking trails (the Wildwood Trail is the most popular). Our favorite easy loop starts in lower Macleay Park in NW Portland: the trailhead there leads along a creek to the "Stone House," where you can either turn back or take a sharp right to the Wildwood Trail. Another 10 minutes down the Wildwood will take you to a meadow, where you can exit the park to a residential neighborhood and make your way to Thurman Street. Thurman crosses the trail head where you started by way of giant trestle bridge, with stairs on the far side leading back down to Macleay Park. The total loop takes us about 45 minutes at a leisurely pace. (The #15 bus from downtown goes up Thurman Street - ask the driver for where to get off for Macleay Park.)

The real deal.

If you are looking for a bit of Oregon to take home with you: 

If you want to get a sense of the greater outdoors without leaving downtown, swing by the Outdoor Store (304 SW 3rd Ave.), a real deal, old-school purveyor of the Wild West gear still used by most of the state (Oregon being a mostly rural state of farmers and ranchers).

For a sampling of Portland's hipster crafty scene, stop by the aptly-named Crafty Wonderland across the street from the library. Or if you're heading to Powell's, check out nearbyTender Loving Empire for more of the same.

As the evening hour approaches: 

There are several excellent happy hours in downtown Portland - many of these I covered in greater detail in my last post. For wet evenings, the classic Huber's (Portland's self-proclaimed oldest restaurant) and the newer Ringside Fish House both have extensive menus of shockingly cheap happy hour food. On warm evenings, the best outside happy hour downtown is Nel Centro. Or, for a more hipster ambiance, check out Clyde Common's happy hour, complete with communal tables and bourbon-based cocktails. Once there, you should seriously consider staying for dinner.

If you're a beer drinker, Bailey's Tap Room is a chill place to sample a wide range of local and not-so-local microbrews. (See also my beer post for more downtown beer ideas.) If you're looking for something a bit more sophisticated, Departure on top of the Nines Hotel has the best rooftop bar downtown. Or if you missed them for brunch, both the Vertiable Quandry and the Heathman have fantastic old-school bars. Indeed, a personal favorite way to end an evening involves a glass of wine and a loveseat in the Heathman's lounge, mellowing to live jazz underneath the grand chandelier. 

Cocktails at Clyde Common: All gone.