Strange-bird Will Open a Brick and Mortar in Southeast Portland

Strange-bird, which has operated as a food cart in Southeast Portland since last year, is transitioning to a brick and mortar, also in Southeast Portland. They’ll be next door to Rhinestone, which started as a pop-up. I ran into Tyler Robb, one of the co-owners, last week and he was kind enough to share some of his time to talk about Strange-bird and their upcoming restaurant. Here is what I learned.

Along with Tyler, the co-owner of Strange-bird is Katie Danz. They are partners in the business and in life. “Katie and I moved to Portland about two years ago,” said Tyler. “She’s from the Bay Area—she grew up in Pacifica. I moved to the Bay Area in 2014, so I was there about 10 years in Oakland.”

“We met working for Cellarmaker Brewing in San Francisco. I was their kitchen operations manager. She was a beertender there.”

It was really great to meet them in person.

Strange-bird: What’s in a Name?

I was curious to know why they called it “Strange-bird,” As a word nerd (let me tell you about my latest obsession, the contronym), I was curious about the chosen spelling, too.

“I liked the way that it looked and sounded,” explained Tyer. “I also wanted to separate—visually—the idea.” That would be the separation of “strange” and “bird.” He says he often gets asked if Strange-bird is a fried chicken concept. “I wanted them to be separate and a little bit more cohesive in the idea that it was not a chicken thing.”

Vonnegut

“Growing up in Indiana, there was a bar/cafe called ‘Strange Bird,'” Tyler explained. He thinks that it has connections to Kurt Vonnegut, who was from Indiana. You’ll find references to birds throughout his oeuvre.

Vonnegut wrote in Slaughterhouse Five, “Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like ‘Poo-tee-weet?'”

“There was all kinds of Kurt Vonnegut-themed things in the city [Indianapolis]. And I always liked them and always was a huge fan of Kurt Vonnegut.”

Creativity and Comfort

Tyler continued, “I also think it just goes along with the idea of what I want to do really well, in the sense that I’m creating this to be not just a pizza place, but a place of creativity and of comfort and of acceptance, that I can basically cook whatever I want to cook.”

He added, “And whatever is seasonal and creative and fun, and I want to bring that idea to be.”

Pizza? Pop-ups?

They had been doing pop-ups lately, and in my travels around the internet, whenever I ran into Strange-bird, I thought, “Oh yeah, that’s the pizza cart.” But if you look at their menu online, you’ll see that they offer things other than pizza. I asked him about their perceived pizza identity.

“I think that it’s fair that people could associate pizza with us primarily,” said Tyler. “Especially since the food cart closed—when I was doing pop-ups, I was only doing pizza. I think in a pop-up scenario, it’s much more easier to just offer one thing. Pop-ups are regularly very singular in that aspect. That’s why I was focusing on doing pizza only.”

Tyler says they have ended their pop-ups—April 15 was their final one, as the restaurant will take a lot of time and attention. However, he does love doing catering.

“I have a background in doing weddings, private parties at different homes, really adaptable to whatever people want to do. I was doing that a lot in California when I was there the last few years, and I think it’s a lot fun to be able to take my concept to people’s events and homes and really bring it to them personally.”

And yes, catering will be something they’ll do along with having the restaurant.

Tyler’s Previous Food Work

“I started cooking professionally when I was very young,” explained Tyler. “I started working at Beach Place in Indianapolis, where I grew up. And when I graduated from high school, I immediately moved to Chicago and started working in more fine dining restaurants there.”

“Between Uncommon Ground, a highly sustainable restaurant in Wrigleyville. They were known at the time for being one of the only places that had a rooftop garden and grew most of their own stuff, back in 2008. And then I continued working at places in Chicago until 2014. I worked at Acadia. I worked at TWO. TWO was one of my favorite restaurants I ever worked at, but they closed during the pandemic. 

“And then I moved to Oakland and started working at Boot and Shoe Service, which was one of Charlie Hallowell’s restaurants, when I started cooking wood fire.” You can read more about how Charlie Hallowell intersected with #MeToo, here. This eventually led to him closing some of his restaurants.

“After that, I worked for Russell Moore at Camino, continuing my wood fire and fine dining stuff,” said Tyler. “Boot and Shoe Service was a wood fire pizza spot that did pasta and New American food. Camino—I hesitate to call it “New American” because it tended to lean toward Russell’s Korean background a lot. It kind of did a little bit of everything.

“He was the chef at Chez Panisse for a number of years before he opened his own place, which was Camino. It was all a wood fire, there was a giant hearth where we would do a lot of grilled duck, grilled lamb, crab, pig, all kinds of stuff. We made our own vinegars. We did everything.

“Between the wood oven and the hearth, it was a really good experience. There were days where we would do paella. So we’d take all of the equipment out of the hearth area and set up basically a campfire and stir rice for eight and a half hours.

“I learned a lot about the cuisine that I I didn’t previously know. A lot about old world cookings that wasn’t something I was brought up learning. It was a really great experience.”

I then said, “And that sounds like the wood fire influence followed you to Strange-bird as well.”

He replied, “It does, yeah. I have a big Santa Maria style wood grill that I’m going to keep out back here. And I’ll be doing a lot of prep on that. I think it’d be a little bit hard to do anything during service on that because it’s about going to be out back in our small out-back space, but it’ll definitely come through in the food.” 

Strange-bird Behind Someday

Previous to this most recent slate of pop-ups, they operated Strange-bird out of a cart behind the bar, Someday. They took over the space formerly occupied by Ruthie’s when they moved to The End. They enjoyed being in that location but they had an unwelcome element in their cart: persistent leaks.

They opened the cart there last August. “Graham [Files] and Jess [Baesler] that own Someday are wonderful people,” he said. “My landlords were great. It was moreso that we couldn’t keep the cart from leaking. It was pretty much brand new, and I spent so much money getting it up to code and everything.”

He continued, “And then the second it started raining, I would come in every day and there’d be three inches of water inside. And because it’s back behind the building next to all the trees, which was wonderful in the summertime, with all the wet in the wintertime it drew a lot of mosquitoes and bugs and stuff, and I was like, ‘I can’t cook in here.'”

The cart has continued to live there, but thankfully they have been able to sell it to some folks in Washington. Unfortunately, he sold it for about a quarter of what he paid for it. “I’d gotten it sealed as much as I can and everything, and I told them the troubles that I would have had with it, and they seem confident that they won’t have the same ones.”

Why a Brick and Mortar

Tyler had been low-key looking for something that he could afford. But he was also paying rent at the food crt space all winter, even though he wasn’t using it. He needed a solution.

He happened on the building next to Rhinestone that was empty—it had been used as a satellite kitchen for Gado Gado and Oma’s Hideaway, but they didn’t need it anymore.

“I got a really good deal on it,” explained Tyler. “And the landlord is super nice—he owns a lot of property in the area. The rent is really good. It was a weird culmination of all the the things that just happened all at once.”

It’s also very close to where the cart was, which hopefully will encourage their customers from there to head to their new location. “It’s still the neighborhood I want to be,” he said. “It used to be a pizza place.” That pizza place was Hammy’s.

“People seem really excited that there’s food going in here again,” said Tyler.

SMBX

SMBX is short for “Small Business Bond™” and is billed as, “a new way for you to invest in local small businesses you love.” You can read about them on the SMBX website.

Tyler said he had a really good experience in this SMBX campaign. It was an alternate funding scenario compared to traditional loans or crowdfunding. A loan was out of the question due to circumstances regarding the rent he was paying on a space he wasn’t really using. And he was tired of crowdfunding.

“I reached out to them on a whim because I knew a couple of people in a restaurant in Oakland that had good experiences with them,” said Tyler. And they were very amenable to his situation.

“They were excited to work with me because they had just ended with Wellspent,” he explained. ” They are in the SF and are trying to break into the Portland market. They said, ‘You’re in a really great area—you’re close to a lot of other businesses, and we think we can help you raise money.'”

They made everything very easy, helped him with the paperwork, social media, email communication, and strategy. He was really grateful that they could take on this part of the process. Here is his SMBX campaign.

Food and Drink at Strange-bird

They will, of course, still have pizza at this contemporary American food restaurant.

As far as service, it will remain fast casual/counter service, though “a little bit of a mix,” in Tyler’s words. They also expect to do a lot of to-go/takeaway orders.

You can sit inside. “We’ll have about 15 feet inside so people can order at the counter if they want to sit inside. And if they want to add things to their order, we’ll have people that can do that for them. They can pay their bill at the table. They can add their bill at the table. We will run food to them. It’s going to be a little bit of a mix of real sit-down down service and counter service because the limitations of our space.

They have 16 seats—12 inside and then four outside in the front.

More Food

While he didn’t have favorites to share, he’s looking forward to revisiting some old friends. “It’s hard to favorite dishes that I’ve done in the past that I want to rework and reiterate into coming menus. One of my favorite summertime dishes is ceviche in a melon.”

He explained: “So I’ll get melons, and usually I’ll do either rockfish or halibut, but it really depends on what is at the seafood market and looks fresh and is the best. But pair that with an aguachile, scoop out the seeds of the melon, put the ceviche inside and top it with pounded sesame, bonito flakes, and jalapeño, and you can kind of just eat it like that—the melon is the bowl.

“It’s super tasty. It’s always a crowd pleaser. It’s fun! I just want to do super fun things like that, but also keep the menu as seasonal as possible, have as little waste as possible, and keep the prices accessible to the community.”

Salad

I had to ask if they were going to have any salads on the menu. (Salad Week returns this year!) “I always try to keep at least one salad on the menu, something light and airy,” he explained. “In the fall and wintertime, I’ll do citrus salad and avocado, crème fraîche, olives, and a really nice olive oil. 

“And chicories! I love a good chicory Caesar. I love doing chicories with all different kinds of dressings and accoutrements. I did a spinach salad late summer lap here with black radish, little fried ricotta croutons, and Bloomsdale spinach and tangerines that was super light. It had a little bit of olive oil and black pepper for the dressing. It was very simple. Super delicious.

“I love doing salads with dandelion greens, mustard greens, miners lettuce—things that are a little bit foraged. They bring a little bit more flavor.”

Drinks

They applied for a full liquor license, and it is still pending, but they will not have a full bar. “I got a full liquor license, in case I ever wanted to batch specialty cocktails,” said Tyler. “But mostly, I’d like to have a pretty curated selection of of Amaros, along with a couple of beers on tap, and we’ll have a couple of wines. We’ll have a Lambrusco for sure, red wine, white wine wine.

“We’re going to have a a lot of housemade soda with own syrups. And aside from that, I’m going to have as many NA. drinks as I can on the menu. I want to do a few mocktails and maybe some kombuchas and probiotic drinks.”

Tyler has family and friends—like many of us—who don’t drink, and it’s important to him that they have a selection they can choose from when they visit the restaurant.

Strange-bird Opening Day

They’d like to be open by the unofficial start to summer, but do not have an exact date. At this point, they’ve gauged mid to late May as a time to open their doors. We’ll update this when we get an exact date.

When they do open, they will start with Wednesday through Saturday, 11am to 9pm. He’s very curious to see how lunch is received in the neighborhood. The menu itself won’t change much between lunch and dinner. Minors will be allowed in the whole time, just not at the bar.

Why Strange-bird Is Special

Tyler recognizes that there is a lot of talent in the Portland food world. But he highlights his background in cooking and in hospitality in multiple cities and regions as a true strength that he brings to the proverbial table.

“I like to think that my extensive background in cooking and hospitality gives me a little bit of an edge,” he remarked. “It’s coming from a lot of different places—be it from Indiana to Chicago, all the way to California, up to the Pacific Northwest, I think I’ve seen the ins and outs of all different kinds of people and places and restaurant styles. I think I dialed in what I what I think is special about that for my experience and put it in do what Strange-bird is going to be.”

Wishing Tyler, Katie, and their team all the best as they transition to the new brick and mortar in Southeast Portland

Strange-bird [reopening May 2026]
2114 SE Clinton Street, Portland
Strange-bird website | Instagram