A Helpful Guide to Dining at PDX (Concourses D and E)

Because I fly a lot for work, I’ve been able to see the Portland Airport (PDX) overhaul as it proceeds, and all the new and returning food and drink options that have come with it. We are blessed with one of the most attractive and hospitable airports in the U.S., and Portlanders take advantage of that. Between the selection and the guarantee of like-street prices, I have eaten many meals before a departure or after an arrival, and I have personal experience of almost all the vendors while dining at PDX.

PDX is still changing, which means that when you read this the information might be slightly out of date. Since no other site is updating its guide to airport vendors, though, it’s more current than any other resource.

This article covers dining at PDX Concourses D and E, and the shared plaza between them.  Future articles will cover B and C, and the outside security area.

DE Post-Security Plaza | D Concourse
E Concourse | Concourse E Food Court

Dining at PDX: DE Post-Security Plaza

Freeland Spirits

As soon as you are through security, you’ll be presented with an opportunity to buy booze.  Freeland Spirits distillery has a shop and tasting room right there, offering gin, vodka, bourbon, and other sundry poisons in their characteristic teardrop-shaped bottles.  While the display is quite enticing, I do wish they would give some thought to the bulky non-portability of those bottles; I’ve never been able to make use of the shop for buying host gifts.

Sizzle Pie

Service Type: Counter
Seating: None
Grab & Go? Yes
Breakfast? Yes
OK For: Vegetarians

Appropriately enough, a Sizzle Pie slice shop is your first food option for dining at PDX. They generally offer 3 to 5 different slice flavors at any given time. While this is a quick food option for something to eat at the gate while you wait for your zone to be called, it’s less practical for on-board food, since it’s a bit challenging to carry a slice box with your two carryons. 

If you know Sizzle Pie from in town, the airport shop is identical; neither the best pizza nor the worst. Disappointingly, the airport kiosk does not consistently have their iconic vegan slices.

Blue Star Donuts

Service Type: Counter
Seating: None
Grab & Go? Yes
Breakfast? Yes
OK For: Vegetarians, Vegans

If you want a sweet to go with your pizza slice, you can grab one of Blue Star’s famous brioche donuts. These are much easier to carry on the plane for later eating. As with most airport stalls, the Blue Star here doesn’t have quite the selection a storefront would, but they usually have 4 to 7 flavors, one of them vegan. If you’re into donuts, you’ll like these.

Portland Coffee Roasters

Service Type: Counter
Seating: Literally Two Tiny Tables
Grab & Go? Yes
Breakfast? Yes
OK For: Caffeine Fiends

Of course, air travel runs on caffeine and DE is there for you. Portland Coffee Roasters is your first option for a pick-me-up, but by no means the last. They have the espresso basics here, plus unusually good drip coffee.  They also have a limited pastry selection if you need to cushion your stomach before that triple cappuccino.

Smith Teamakers

Service Type: Counter
Seating: None
Grab & Go? Yes
Breakfast? Liquid Only
OK For: Caffeine Fiends and the caffeine Sensitive

My favorite caffeine option in PDX, though, is the new Smith store. They offer a selection of four different premium teas (plus some flavored/herbal tea), either hot or iced, at least in the in the summer. Also, if you need to pick up a couple host gifts, they have a wide selection of bagged and loose tea leaves of various grades for sale in small, gift-worthy boxes.

Grassa

Service Type: Counter
Seating: 20 Tables Plus Bar
Grab & Go? Limited
Breakfast? Yes
OK For: Vegetarians, Booze lovers

You wouldn’t think that you’d have actual handmade pasta in an airport restaurant, but that’s what Grassa has to offer for dining at PDX. They’ve got an extremely limited selection of their handmade pasta with classic Italian preparations: generally six different pasta dishes, plus one meat dish. They also have a couple salads and sides, which can be a light meal or a snack if you want. Their Grab & Go options are mainly just salads and a couple choices of sandwich.  

Grassa offers a small selection of breakfast items in the morning, and their avocado toast with egg is one of the best light breakfasts in the airport.  More than anything, though, they have a broad selection of cocktails, wine, and beer, making it a surprisingly effective place to get hammered after your flight is cancelled, for a not-at-all-bar-like restaurant.

Dining at PDX: D Concourse

Three of the restaurants in D share a large public seating area, usually ensuring that you can find a table for your meal rather than having to eat at the gate. Unlike the E concourse, though, D’s seating area is reminiscent of a shopping mall food court, with hard plastic chairs, white melamine tables, and no power outlets.  

Cha! Cha! Cha!

Service Type: Counter
Seating: 5 Tables, plus Shared
Grab & Go? No
Breakfast? Yes
OK For: Vegetarians, Vegans, GF (probably)

Sporting a surprisingly extensive menu for a narrow storefront, this location of the longtime Portland Mexican food mini-chain is in keeping with their general transition to concessions instead of full-service restaurants. The current menu has many choices of taco, plus burritos, some plates, and more breakfast selections than any other restaurant in D. Given the corn tortilla options, several menu items here should be gluten free, but you should check with the staff.

Hissho Sushi

Service Type: Counter
Seating: 6-seat Sushi Bar, plus Shared
Grab & Go? Yes
Breakfast? No
OK For: Vegetarians, Vegans (in theory)

Sushi is one of my favorite options for both before-departure and on-the-plane eating. It’s good at room temperature, generally not messy, and light while being filling. Sadly, Hissho does not let me put this preference into practice. It is frequently closed during published open hours, and when open is often out of several food items, sometimes up to half the menu.  They’re also sometimes inexplicably slow on takeout orders.

PDX Burgerville

Service Type: Counter
Seating: Shared
Grab & Go? No, but see below
Breakfast? No
OK For: Vegetarians, Vegans, Passengers with 10 minutes until boarding

Our hometown fast food brand offers a limited selection of its menu here, including burgers, fries, fish sandwiches, and—most temptingly—their real fruit milkshakes.  If you’ve been to Burgerville before, you know what to expect; if not, think “McDonalds but upscale.”  Not only are their meals rather portable, fast food practice means they’re a bit quicker at takeout than their competitors in the concourse. Instead of grab-and-go, what they offer is the ability to order online ahead of time and pick up your order at the counter before boarding.

Deschutes Brewery

Service Type: Table
Seating: 25 Tables
Grab & Go? Yes
Breakfast? Yes
OK For: Beer Drinkers, Vegetarians, Vegans

As befits the satellite of the Portland brewpub with some of the best food, this airport pub has probably the best menu, with options for everyone except the gluten-free. It goes to show what you can actually do if you work with the HMSHost kitchen staff. Wings, salads, flatbreads, and a wide selection of burgers; while not as vegetarian-friendly as I’d like, veggies have multiple options. Deschutes has probably the best table-service breakfast in the airport. 

Stumptown Coffee Roasters

Service Type: Counter
Seating: None
Grab & Go? Yes
Breakfast? Yes
OK For: Caffeine Fiends

Stumptown has the coffee concession for D concourse.  They have pastry in the mornings as well.

Washington Park

Service Type: Store
Seating: None
Grab & Go? Exclusively
Breakfast? No
OK For: Thirsty travellers

For some inexplicable reason, PDX decided that the concession named after one of Portland’s largest parks should be the one with 40 linear feet of cold cases. Still, if you want just about any kind of mass-market drink in a bottle, you can find it here. What they don’t have is much of a book selection, despite being owned by WH Smith.

Dining at PDX: E Concourse

Barbur Foods

Service Type: Store
Seating: None
Grab & Go? Yes
Breakfast? Sort of?
OK For: Vegetarians, Vegans

At first glance, this store at start of E Concourse looks identical to any generic bottle-water-chips-and-charger store elsewhere in PDX or any airport. What’s Barbur about it? The answer is the deli case in the center of the store, which contains grab-and-go items from Barbur and Ya Halla, such as falafel, couscous, and salads. This is one of your best fast options for something very portable to eat on the plane; those containers will fit easily into the bottom of a backpack.

They also have a whole bay of comics stocked by Books With Pictures.

Hopworks

Service Type: Table
Seating: 30 Tables plus Counter
Grab & Go? Yes
Breakfast? Yes
OK For: Beer Drinkers

One thing to understand about table service restaurants at PDX is that they’re all staffed by employees of the international service monopoly HMSHost, regardless of whose name is on the front of the restaurant. So if you’ve found food between airport restaurants to be monotonously similar, that’s why. Especially when the restaurant brand doesn’t make much of an effort to make their food distinct.

This is all a roundabout way of saying that this establishment is pretty much “Generic HMSHost Pub with Hopworks Beer.” There’s a short menu, including three breakfast options, which is surprisingly vegetarian-hostile and has nothing for vegans or GF folks at all. This is a good place to have a beer.

Dining at PDX: Concourse E Food Court

Most of the remaining food options in E are a trio of counter service food stalls around a large shared seating area which is actually the most relaxing place to have a meal in PDX outside of Alaska’s $13 million first class lounge.  With natural lighting (which can be a challenge at the wrong time of day), upholstered seating on a variety of table sizes, and a grand piano for the PDX musician brigade, it feels like a posh mall food court from a very expensive neighborhood.  There’s even some seating with power outlets.

None of these restaurants are open particularly early, so while some have breakfast items they are not an option for those catching a 7am flight.

Remember to tip the musician!

Tillamook

Service Type: Counter
Seating: Shared
Grab & Go? Yes
Breakfast? No
OK For: Children, Vegetarians

Our iconic cheddar brand offers a cheese bar for those not monitoring their cholesterol or calories. Offerings include a grilled cheese sandwiches, fried cheese curds, and cheeseburgers, as well as local beer on tap. Possibly the airport’s best choice for those traveling with grade school children, especially with the great Tillamook bus themed playground across the hall.

Evergreens

Service Type: Counter
Seating: Shared
Grab & Go? Yes
Breakfast? Yes
OK For: Gluten-Free, Low Carb, Vegetarians, Vegans

This fancy salad counter, an import from Seattle, brings your “health food” option to Concourse E. They offer a variety of customer-configurable salad bowls including all sorts of greens and grains, with terrible puns for names (“curryous george” and “steaks on a plane”).  They also offer “wraps” for extra portablility. 

Remember that you can modify the ingredients of whatever you’re ordering.  Unfortunately, with the current hi-protein fad, most of their current salads/bowls are non-vegetarian, limiting what used to be a better option for veg types.  This may be the most GF-friendly option in E.

Bambuza

Service Type: Counter
Seating: Shared
Grab & Go? Yes
Breakfast? Sort of
OK For: Gluten-Free, Vegetarians, Vegans

This is one of two locations for local-Vietnamese-restaurant-turned-hospitality-juggernaut Bambuza in our airport (the other is in Concourse C). They offer a limited selection of classic Vietnamese lunch foods, including pho, bahn mi, and rice rolls. Their tofu bahn mi is possibly my favorite “eat on the plane” option from PDX, both for portability and for having the kind of strong flavors you want at altitude.  I don’t recommend taking the pho on the plane, though. They also have a full cocktail bar.  Their breakfast options, though, are limited and bland.

Stumptown Coffee Roasters

Service Type: Counter
Seating: None
Grab & Go? Yes
Breakfast? Yes
OK For: Caffeine Fiends

This is the largest of Stumptown’s three coffee bars in PDX, offering all the usual espresso drinks. They have pastry in the mornings as well.

Jamba Juice

Service Type: Counter
Seating: None
Grab & Go? Yes
Breakfast? Yes
OK For: Gluten-Free, Vegetarians, Vegans

I’m baffled that PDX made one of its few exceptions for the “locals only” policy for Jamba Juice. Surely there’s a PNW-based juice bar that wants to open in the airport?  Until then, this location has your 800 calories of fructose for a liquid lunch before, or during, your flight.

Juliett

Service Type: Bar
Seating: Bar, dozen tables
Grab & Go? No
Breakfast? Yes
OK For: Drinkers, Low Carb

When opening the renovated Concourse E, PDX announced the inclusion of a fancy and retro airport bar, intended to inspire “golden age of travel” nostalgia as well as lauding notable female aviators of the 20th century. Somewhat impairing this mood, since its opening the bar and restaurant hasn’t ever attracted the number of diners all the way down at the end of E concourse it needed to be really successful. As such, both food and service have been cut since the 2023 opening, leaving you ordering off a fairly restricted menu from the bar. 

Like Hopworks, that menu has little for vegetarians or other special diets. However, it is a better choice than Hopworks if you want a sit-down breakfast in E; the french toast is good.