Location


 

Hi!

We’re located in the middle of the cinnamon roll – the golden heart of Southeast Portland’s Sunnyside district.  Nestled in between bustling Hawthorne and laid-back Belmont, you can explore and graze and be entertained without having a plan… just point yourself in a direction and meander.

There are 3 major bus routes within 4 blocks in each direction that will take you anywhere you wanna go.  This neighborhood is what Portland is all about.

Walk around this beautiful and interesting neighborhood where strangers smile at you and say hello, happy people ride by on their bikes humming a song you like, people paint their Victorian homes pink, and kitties run up to you and flip and roll for belly-rubs.  This neighborhood will soften the imprint of an awkward adolescence and make you feel welcomed, liked, and accepted just by walking down the street.  I shit you not!

cat

If you want excitement, head 4 blocks to Hawthorne.  If you want mellow fun, head 2 blocks to Belmont.  A few blocks to the library, the movie theater, shopping, drinking (lots and lots of drinking), lounging, people watching, sitting, standing, eating (lots and lots of eating), reading, and almost everything else you wanna do!  Oh, and don’t forget Laurelhurst Park – sit by the lake and watch the ducks, admire the beauty, smell the pine.

laurelhurstlake

Feel like a sweet treat?  Walk 4 blocks to the Waffle Window and order yourself and individual-sized custom waffle!  Wanna chill in a stylish lounge, listen to good music, and sip a perfectly crafted cocktail?  Walk 3 blocks to the Aalto Lounge and feel instantly more attractive and comfortable in your own skin as you bask in the candlelight and admire the Nelson lamps.  And Oregon has tap-water you can drink!  It’s true – the water is clean, it tastes great, and it comes delicious right from the tap.

farmfusionwaffle

The air smells and feels good, it gets cleaned by the rain on the regular.  In the spring, the entire street – as far as you can see in both directions – is PINK!  Cherry trees planted on both sides for blocks and blocks!  At first bloom, all you see is a constant parade of people on foot and on bikes just grinning ear-to-ear, completely blissed out, as they move themselves through this corridor of gently falling pink-petal-snow.

pinkcherry

And in the summer, this place is a technicolor paradise for months and months.  That’s when the truly weird come out to play.  And by weird, I don’t mean the unicycling bagpiper, or the steampunk clowns on tall-bikes with twisty-mustaches… I mean the people who live in a universe of their own creation… The man who drives around in his Escalade singing ‘That Old Time Rock And Roll’ at the top of his lungs, flat and off-key and not giving a frack.  Or the man in the convertible polka-dot Miata who struts around in his matching purple velour warm-up suit.  The ‘clown’ who dresses in all black and walks his turtle.  Long-time fixture Performer/Personality John “Elvis” Shroder.  Departed traffic serenader “Working” Kirk Reeves (rest his sweet soul).  One armed guitar street performer  Lefty.

workingkirkreeves

Portland was, and to some extent still is, a place for those who don’t fit in anywhere else to find a place to just BE without getting hassled.  The landscape is changing rapidly as developers strip away the weathered character.  But, the heart of Southeast Portland is still in tact, it’s irregular and unique rhythm is still beating, and fortune is still smiling on misfits with something of themselves to offer who want and need to find their peeps.

We hope that you come while those of us who have cobbled together this awesome patchwork quilt of a neighborhood are still here to give you a hi-five as you enter our snow-globe version of reality.

xoxo

 

Nerdletta

 

p.s. Here are some pretty pictures for you to look at – all of them here in the bubble!