The Celery Is Now Open - Bridgetown Bites

The Rain Shadow Bowl at The Celery. Photo credit: The Celery

Back in October 2021 I came across mention of The Celery, a restaurant planning to offer organic whole foods in the form of juices & smoothies, bowls, salads, and … oatmeal! But for months there wasn’t a peep out of their website or social media (spoiler: it took a year to get the place off the ground). That’s all changed—The Celery is now open in the Boise neighborhood along the N Williams commercial strip between Fremont and Prescott.

The Celery, which opened officially in early January 2022, was co-founded by Steve Fogarty and Matt Trenkle. Steve spent a number of years at adidas and Twitter, and Matt co-founded Greenleaf Juice over a decade ago; he also has associations with the Pearl District Business Association and Venture Portland.

In what is considered to be the flagship store, The Celery is located on the ground floor of the Parallax Apartments and “was invented on the idea that incredible food can be healthy, feel light and energizing, and be easy to get.” More about the philosophy behind The Celery via Steve:

“We chose the Celery as our name because it’s the underdog vegetable and we like underdogs. It’s part of so many foods but never really gets the credit, yet it holds its own in what it brings to the table (pun intended). And it reminds us that every ingredient matters.
“We are committed to continually putting in the effort to make better food, more sustainably, and with the least amount of impact to our environment and community. We never tire of asking ourselves the question, did we do good enough. We are committed to constantly learning about the food we serve, it’s impact on health and the environment and making this transparent to our customers.”

As far as what they are offering, you can find smoothies in bowl form and in the more traditional drinkable form, many of them containing house-made cashew milk and oatmilk. And aside from smoothie bowls, they offer a bunch of other things in bowls: salads, grain bowls, and oatmeals. Any of the animal proteins—chicken and salmon—are pastured (just the chicken, not the salmon) and sustainable. There are vegan options, too, like tempeh.

As far as juices go, they have an industrial cold-press juicer on site with the aim of making small batches of juices at the store every morning. Cold pressing allows for more nutrients to remain in the juice, as opposed to the more familiar centrifugal juicer, which heats things up and destroys some of the enzymes. Look also for coffee, beer and wine, as well as a couple of healthy baked goods.

Their online menu (via Square) can be found here.

While I have not been by personally, the photos of the bowls in particular are filled with colorful, healthy and delicious looking items, which I find utterly appealing. The photo at the top of this post of the Rain Shadow Bowl, shows me that The Celery really has my number: ingredients include brown rice, black beans, roasted poblanos & onions, cilantro, lime wedge, avocado, toasted pumpkin seeds and a house-made creamy avocado cilantro sauce. You can add chicken, salmon or tempeh. I’ve recently come to enjoy tempeh moreso than at any other time in my life, so I can see ordering this bowl with that protein.

The space is also looking quite nice—light and airy.

Photo credit: The Celery

So, if you’re looking for some healthy food in an easy to consume format that is involves organic and sustainably-sourced ingredients, The Celery is likely to be right up your alley. Congrats on the opening and best of luck, The Celery folks!

The Celery
4008 N Williams Avenue, Portland
thecelery.com | Instagram | Facebook