Hi-Top Adds Coffee and Lunch Service in Portland

I’ve learned that Hi-Top on NE Fremont Street has added morning coffee service and lunch to their menu. When I read about it, I wanted to learn more so I reached out to them. I ended up having a great conversation with Ezra Caraeff, one of the owners of the bar. Here’s what I learned.

The Initial Tip

I got a customer-facing email in my inbox from the Three on Match Bar Group with little tidbits about what’s going on with their various bars. Here’s what they wrote for Hi-Top:

“Get ready for a whole lot more Hi-Top, as we are now open daily at 7am seven days a week. We are serving up delicious Coava Coffee, sweet treats from Flour Market, breakfast tacos galore, full lunch service, and then rolling into the cocktail hours.”

I’m currently fascinated by the growing trend of two food businesses sharing a space and splitting the day—I’m thinking Guilder/Upright Beer Station, Living Room Coffee/Living Room Wines, Broder/Estes, and LORO/Ranch.

Three on a Match

You probably know their bars: The Old Gold (the OG, which they started in 2011), Paydirt, Tough Luck, Holy Ghost, and Hi-Top. Ezra describes the trio of owners in the bar group as “just three people from Portland.” He also told me about the origins of the phrase, “three on a match.”

“In World War I, the story was that you can only light three cigarettes per match before it was seen in the trenches,” he explained. “And then later on, it came out that this story was not true, but that a match manufacturer spread that story so people would buy more matches. I think they teach this in advertising class and things like that.”

Why Coffee at Hi-Top?

When I asked Ezra why they decided to introduce a coffee program at Hi-Top, there was one detail I wasn’t anticipating—that the space was once the home to Jim & Patty’s! Jim & Patty’s closed last year ( miss their Pig Newtons).

“Part of the reason we opened the bar in the first place is that we love the neighborhood, and we’ve always loved the community around it,” explained Ezra. “And so when we opened Hi-Top each day, we would be there in the mornings.” This scenario made the realize they could make and serve coffee and breakfast without much change to their schedules.

Ezra said they really knew nothing about coffee at the start, so they brought in a manager with skills who they have great confidence in. “Heather is doing a fantastic job,” remarked Ezra. “And we also got training from Coava Coffee. It’s worked out really well and it’s been a pretty natural fit.”

From concept to execution of the coffee program, it’s only been a couple of months, so a fairly fast procress.

The Jim & Patty’s Connection

Ezra told me about the Jim & Patty’s connection. “When we first went into the space we recognized it right away as the original Jim and Patty’s,” he said. “And so when we walked around, especially when it was empty, it felt like we’re building a bar in a coffee bar. It always felt like a coffee place.”

And they loved being so close to Jim & Patty’s when it was open across the street—the coffee and the Pig Newtons and all the other things—and would go there every day.

“When they closed, we felt that our access to coffee was kind of thrown off. “Well, where are we gonna get coffee?” they wondered. “Like, what are we gonna do? And then I was like—well, we’re here anyway, and the space has a great coffee history as it is.”

Coffee and Lunch: What You’ll Find at Hi-Top

Right now they are in a soft opening period with the coffee service. Along with the coffee they also offer breakfast tacos and breakfast sandwiches they make in their kitchen, as well as pastries from Flour Market, a woman-run bakery on NE 30th Ave just north of Killingworth.

As for the bread for sandwiches, they will continue to use Grand Central for that. But for their pastries, Ezra was particularly excited about offering their Kouign Amann. They also have croissants, a muffin, and a sticky bun on the pastry menu.

You can see the full coffee and breakfast menu and full food menu on their website.

A Bit About Happy Hour and NA Options at Hi-Top

“We started last year between 3pm and 5pm, and we have a really great happy hour with really good food options,” explained Ezra. The menu is small, but tasty: a hummus plate and some brats (meat and vegan), plus some beer and spirits options.

And because I’m always asking about NA options, I inquired about them to Ezra and they have a few mocktails that sound great, each at $10:

• Pomegranate Lemonade: Pomegranate, Lemon-Basil Shrub, Sugar, Soda, served in a pint glass.
• Flying Straight: DHŌS Non-Alcoholic Gin, DHŌS Non-Alcoholic Bittersweet, Pineapple, Lime, Demerara, served tall.
• No Pressure: Ritual Non-Alcoholic Tequila, Coco Lopez, Passionfruit, Mint, Sugar, served on the rocks.

We nerded out on how much improved NA beer is these days. And how Portland is a fantastic place to be sober because there’s so much variety in the NA offerings here. They always keep three or four NA beers in stock, including Athletic and Roaming Nobles, which is a local brand.

The Space

There’s a lot of space there at Hi-Top—both inside and outside on their patio (there are covered and uncovered sections). Inside they have little rooms and nooks where people can have meetings. And they’d like people to come hang out and stick around. After all, they have the space.

“We’ve got these little rooms,” said Ezra. “It’s actually a great place to work remotely.” He also suggested that some might consider all the enticing space to be a negative (i.e., people might hang out for hours on end), but for them they saw it as a huge positive.

“We would love it if people would just hang out here for four hours, you know, while working remotely and doing their thing.” said Ezra.

And this is a very different approach from, say, a Starbucks or a Peet’s, which seem to actively want customers to leave after they get their coffee. Hi-Top wants to be more like a British pub (not visually), where you are welcome to stay and hang out for a while.

He shared observations on how they do things in Europe, in his experience:

“In Europe, it’s great to have coffee there. You never feel rushed. No one’s ever coming to say, ‘We need this table, get out.’ You know, you can sit there and read the newspaper. You can stare at your phone. You can have a conversation.”

“At the end of the day, we all serve the same things everyone does,” he remarked. “So the only real difference is trying to have a sort of relationship with the people who come in and out of your establishment.”

“The idea is that these these spaces are community spaces,” Ezra explained. “Some of our busiest days are snow days,. We’ve hosted birthday parties for one-year olds, and we’ve hosted countless wakes. And we want to be part of this neighborhood.”

“Imagine getting coffee and not feeling the need to rush out the door,” he said.

Hours for Coffee, Lunch, and the Rest of the Day at Hi-Top

Some details on how the day is situated at Hi-Top with regard to service:

• Coffee starts at 7am and goes until 2pm.
• Lunch starts at 11am, and you can start enjoying cocktails and other drinks at that point.
• Happy Hour is from 3pm to 5pm. You can get the breakfast sandwich all day long.
• They close at 11pm except for Friday and Saturday, when they are open til midnight.

I really enjoyed my conversation with Ezra and learning more about Hi-Top and their current offerings. I’ll be by soon for a cup of coffee and a Kouign Amann!

Hi-Top
New coffee and breakfast service
5015 NE Fremont Street, Portland
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