Food carts are part of the culture of Portland and an important element of the eating and drinking that goes on in the city. They are found throughout the city both as individual carts and grouped together in pods.
Blasphemy BBQ, a new place to get barbecue, is coming soon to Portland at the Flying Tortoise food cart pod on NE Glisan Street on the edge of Laurelhurst. They’ll offer a new style of barbecue that they think is worth your time and tastebuds. I reached out to co-ownerJenny Nickolaus to learn more about their new ‘cue vision.
This is the same cart that was home to Ooba Sushi, which is now home to Kona Kitchen.
My-O-My, which opened up in the Sumner neighborhood back in January 2023, has a new food cart on the back patio: Kona Kitchen. They offer Hawaiian food—from an ahi tuna poke bowl to kalua pork, teriyaki chicken to mac salad, and much more.
Update on Arrowood. After I was asked if I had heard any updates from Arrowood (my emails remain unanswered), a neighbor indicated that they had seen a listing online for the Arrowood space. I checked it out, and found a listing on Crexi entitled, “For Lease: Turnkey Restaurant & Bar for Lease.” So, looks like we have the answer: They are done. Truly unfortunate for the neighborhood. 5846 NE Sandy Blvd, Portland
Welcome to our end-of-the-year roundup of top posts on Bridgetown Bites in 2024. Aside from our Thanksgiving article, the top posts were about openings and closings—restaurant, cafe, bar, and food cart news. And topping the list this year is a double-header: East Portland’s Wooden Chicken Pub! It if hadn’t been for this duo, the closing of 3 Doors Down would have taken spot number 10.
From an analytics POV, traffic had a healthy increase from 2023 to 2024. With 205,100 unique visitors up from 106,000 last year, that’s an increase of 93.3%. Page views were 142,000 last year and 265,000 this year, which is an 86.6% increase. I’m proud of the hard work that has gone into nurturing this site, and serving as a quality resource for those interested in Portland food news—all as an independent shop.
And while Bridgetown Bites is run by one person, our tipsters and readers who pass on news are invaluable to my work here, so thank you very much, friends! Additional thanks to all who read the site, comment, share articles, and send feedback. I look forward to continuing to bring you Portland food news and views in 2025.
So without further ado, here are the top 10 posts on Bridgetown Bites in 2024.
The dining room at Zula, which closed in October 2024.
Over the years, Bridgetown Bites has published numerous stories about Portland restaurant openings and closings. But what’s different about this year, is that I kept a simple list of those we covered, in reverse-chronological order. I thought it would be fun to look back on that list, and make a few observations.