Four Things I Learned This Week (November 12)

Shady Pines is closing. News of this vegan food truck pod’s closure was mentioned on a variety of social media channels. They’ll be open until the end of November and then the pod is over. Members of the pod are sad to be disbanding but I hope the various carts can find a home elsewhere. 5240 NE 42nd Avenue, Portland

Iraqi pilsner, what? In the “you learn something new every day” is the comment from Dar Salam that they offer an Iraqi pilsner on their menu: “Have you had our Iraqi beer? It’s the first Iraqi pilsner in U.S. and you can get it at both our Alberta and downtown location. Cheers!” Yet another reason to stop by for some of their excellent food and drink. 2921 NE Alberta Street, Portland and 320 SW Alder Street, Portland

The Gastro Obscura vending machine’s west coast premiere Saturday. As part of the Gastro Obscura book tour, the Atlas Obscura folks have built the “World’s Most Unusual Vending Machine.” It holds many intriguing things—“taste bud-bending miracle berries to color-changing edible flowers.” It sounds kinda Willy Wonka, in a way. The vending machine will make its west coast debut at the Portland Art Museum’s sculpture garden on Saturday, November 14 during an event from 2-5pm with Gastro Obscura‘s author, Cecily Wong. The vending machine will be around all weekend, though. 1219 SW Park Avenue, Portland

Montavilla’s Fillmore Coffee moves online. The Montavilla News has a nice writeup about Fillmore Coffee, which started as a coffee shop on NE Glisan, but has now moved to online sales and delivery. From the article: “As an online-only business, Fillmore is still evolving, according to [co-owner Tim] Willcox. ‘It’s still a work in progress. We’re building out a small Roastery and coffee lab. Things have been slower, yet still steady.’” Online at orderfillmorecoffee.com