Mayger Coffee Will Open in the Madison South Neighborhood in Portland

Last month I meet up with Arlen Kallunki, who is opening Mayger Coffee in the southwestern corner of the Madison South neighborhood. He’s taking over the space that used to be home to a Vientamese bakery and deli called TM Banh Mi. We met up at Futura Coffee on NE Glisan and had a very nice chat about the new cafe. Here’s what I learned.

Mayger Coffee: What’s in a Name?

I was curious to hear the story behind Mayger Coffee’s name. At first I thought it was a riff on “Magyars,” who are Hungarians; Hungary has a long tradition of coffee culture dating back to the 16th century. Turns out I was wrong: Mayger is the name of the town where Arlen was born, and using that name was a sentimental choice.

“Mayger is a small town in Columbia County in the unincorporated community of Clatskanie, which is out towards Astoria on the Columbia River,” Arlen explained. “I grew up in Clatskanie, and Mayger used to be its own postal zip code and everything at one point.”

More About Arlen

He told me a little more about his background “I grew up in Oregon and I’m fourth generation here. My dad is a Columbia River gillnetter, as was his father and my great grandfather. We’re all Columbia River gillnetters.”

Arlen, too, would have liked to have been a gillnetter, but financially it would be a challenge. “It’s not fruitful. The writing was on the wall a long time ago that it wasn’t going to be much of a industry anymore. But I miss it.”

He enjoyed growing up in Mayger. “I have nothing but fond memories living there,” he said. Originally, he thought he would have gone in a different naming direction. “I was going to name it after one of my kids,” he remarked. “But I didn’t want one feeling more special than the other.”

Along with his interest in coffee, Arlen has been a musician. “You know, growing up, I’d always aspired to be a musician,” he said. “And I’ve always wanted to move to the city, to Portland.” He wanted to open a coffee shop 20 years ago, but he also had plans to play music and do many things. “Now that I’m getting older, I really yearn to go back home and try to live one foot in both lives,” he said.

Arlen’s Experience in Hospitality

Arlen has had some experience in the world of food. “I was involved in the back end of it—delivery, wine, and I was a wine sales rep out of Spokane, Washington,” he said. “I used to work for a couple of different beer distributors. So I’ve been in and around the restaurant business quite a bit, and I used to want to open a bar when I was real young.”

He continued, “When you’d see these fun new bars pop up, I always wanted to be a part of that. And today, it’s coffee.

Mayger Coffee Location

The cafe is in a little corner of Madison South—next door to live music venue The Snug, across the street from The Binford (condos and apartments), and not far from the property formerly known as Pacific Market, which burned to the ground last year. When I was by last month, it was still a vacant lot. “Yeah, there’s no structure there now. I heard that they’re probably going to be building apartments there,” Arlen said.

As I mentioned in the intro, the Mayger Coffee location used to be home to TM Banh Mi, a very popular place to get banh mi, curries, pho, and more. They were the sister to Binh Minh on SE Powell.

“Since it used to be a restaurant, I got my plan review approved on the consultation,” said Arlen. “I’m not a remodel or new construction. I’m really just moving some things around—the fixtures and everything are already there.”

The Snug

I wanted to mention one of their neighbors, The Snug, which we reported on before they opened. “It’s a cool little bar,” said Arlen. “I wish more people knew about it. They have live music almost every night. The owners are great. The music is diverse and pretty good.”

He added, “They [recently] had their two-year anniversary and they had an all day concert—10 different bands playing there!”

The Kind of Cafe Maybe Will Be

They hope for Mayger Cafe to be a true neighborhood cafe, a comfortable spot for people that come in and get a cup of coffee and a pastry. 

The cafe will be staffed by Arlen and his niece Addie. “She’s excited about it!” said Arlen of his niece’s interest. He’s also been hiring additional staff that he hopes can hit the ground running. He’s looking forward to learning and improving his barista skills but, “I want to make sure there’s somebody there who knows what they’re doing,” he remarked.

“I want to make sure they’re getting the good stuff there—I don’t want to practice on them!”

Coffee

He’ll offer some standard espresso drinks: Cappuccino, latte, cortado, mocha, as well as chai and matcha. Hot and iced. He’ll also key into what the neighborhood demand is, and adjust as needed or desired.

Fun fact: He bought his espresso machine from the good folks at Guilder.

I asked Arlen if he had already chosen a roaster to work with. “That was the first thing I did!” he exclaimed. “I signed my lease and then found a roaster. And I’ve been with Proud Mary Rosters.”

He added, “They were the first to get back to me, and they have been just a dream to work with them since. They’re very nice people.”

He also likes a lighter roast for his coffee. “You know, it’s subtle—just kind of your average, everyday coffee,” he remarked. “They have this blend called Humbler, which we’re probably going to have a lot. It’s very user friendly, kind of what you would think of as a cup of diner coffee, but a delicious high quality version of it.”

He’s also a fan of the single origin coffees they are offering. “I’m learning a lot being with them,” he said. “I like things that can surprise me.”

He did not apply for a liquor license, and does not plan to. Partly it’s because The Snug is next door, and they do serve alcohol over there. 

Food

As for what you can order to eat at Mayger Cafe, he’s going to start with a very small food menu—pastries, quiche and Suolakala, a salt-cured salmon, similar to lox or gravlax, that is part of Finnish cuisine. His family is Finnish and the community he grew up in is predominantly Finnish.

“Some of my relatives, they would use pure salt, no sugar, to cure the salmon—with some dill,” he explained. “I make it with a little salt, a little sugar—heavier on the salt side, as I like it saltier—and fresh chopped dill..” And then they press the salmon with a weight.

And while there are other ways to cure salmon, he’s going to stick to the Finnish tradition of Suolakala. “I want to serve that over rye with some crème fraîche,” he added.

He’ll also have a grab and go refrigerator, and who knows, he may even stock ready-to-eat banh mi as an homage to what came before him in that space.

Menu Favorites

If he had a favorite on the menu, it would be the Suolakala—sharing this from his Finnish heritage is really exciting.

He also looking to offer a kind of porridge—think overnight oats with a Finnish flair. He’d like to add lingonberries and/or fresh cloudberries. Also, he’d like to serve Munkki, a kind of Finnish donut, if his kitchen meets code for that. Right now they have cafe style kitchen, so no hood.

More on the Mayger Coffee Location: Why Here?

Arlen used to live in the neighborhood, around NE 70th and Siskiyou, and still lives not too far away. And at that time there really wan’t anything within walking distance for them—Denizens is now there, as is Harder Day and Case Study on Sandy, but they are still a bit of a walk from where they were.

“I always wished there was a coffee shop,” said Arlen.

Constructing the Space

As for the space inside, when I stopped by it was a bit of a blank canvas. But Arlen has experience with building things, so he is confident about his ability to create something really great inside Mayger Cafe. “I’m a builder,” he said. “We built our house—the house on Siskiyou—from the ground up. And I worked for a contractor off and on.”

“And so I’ve got the skills—and the ability to learn the skills that I don’t have, when it comes to some plumbing and electrical. Most of it’s already all there from being the banh mi shop. I just kind of have to reconfigure a few things.”

Look and Feel of Mayger Coffee

As far as the look and feel inside the cafe—the interior design—he is letting the building lead him. “I like to let the age of the building dictate what it’s going to look like,” said Arlen. The building was built in the 1970s and was a laundromat at one point.

“I want to design the space in a way so that it looks like it’s always been there,” he explained. “I’m going for wood paneling, kind of 70s, nothing too on the nose, you know. And also kind of designing it in a way that is nostalgic for what I think when I think of Mayger. It’s really just going to be my own nostalgia, nobody else’s, other than my immediate family who will be like, ‘Yeah, I remember that.'”

Hi grandparents had a single-wide trailer with green and browns in it, which evokes that time period for him. He’s also interested in the look and feel of diners of the 70s and 80s—without the dinginess left by all the tobacco smoke of the time.

The Only Cafe in the Immediate Area

To me, it is clear that what is special about Mayger Coffee, at the very least, is that they are the only cafe in the immediate area. “Hopefully that sets me apart enough—that I’m the one that’s there. But I’m not just resting on that, you know. I really want to try to be the best.”

He continued, “I want to be a place people want to keep coming back to. Whether they’re from the neighborhood or not, I would really like to strive for it to be a comfortable, inviting place.”

Mayger Coffee Opening

Arlen woudl like to be open Mayger Coffee before the end of the year. And when they do open, look for them to be in business seven days a week, from 7am to 2pm. No live music is planned, since next door is a live music venue. They hey open at about 4pm, so their hours will not cross.

All the best to Arlen and his team as they work to get Mayger Coffee open.

Mayger Coffee [projected opening December 2025]
6812 NE Broadway, Portland
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