Harder Day Coffee Co. has been in the news lately. Aside from their opening a new cafe in the Hollywood District, they are in place at the cafe inside Spin Fremont, and also just happened to buy Water Avenue Coffee from Sortis Holdings.
The other day—actually, it was on my birthday—I stopped in at Northport in the Kenton neighborhood in North Portland. I was eager to check it out, as I’d been following the progress of the restaurant for many months. An early July media tasting had to be postponed, so I caught up with them a couple weeks later, for a nice solo lunch.
Note: This meal was comped but opinions are my own.
Northport—not apartments but a new restaurant—will open in North Portland.
At the end of last year, Swift & Union closed their doors after nine years in Kenton. That space looks like it is going to welcome a new tenant: Northport, opening on Wednesday, June 26. (Note: this post has some updates since originally published.)
We are comfortably into January 2024 and it’s time to take a look back at 2023’s most-read posts on Bridgetown Bites. They mostly involved openings and closings of restaurants and bars, but there was one article on an Asian market opening in SE Portland that made the list.
I’m happy to say that from an analytics POV, traffic almost doubled between 2022 and 2023 here on the blog. Regarding 2022 I said, “Over 55,000 visits were recorded, and almost 35,000 of those visits were new to the site.” In 2023 we had 106,000 unique visits, with 86,000 new to the site; these visitors generated almost 142,000 page views, too. Not too bad for this little independent blog.
I also read somewhere online that this blog skews toward NE Portland. That is a true statement. I also read in the same source that some readers would love to see more coverage of the west side of Portland. This is good feedback. will see what I can do about that, and diversifying geographically in general.
Thanks to all who have read, commented, sent tips (keep ’em coming!), and shared these articles/posts on social media and with friends. Here’s to another great year of delving into the Portland food world!
When I was at dinner the other night, my friends who live in St. Johns said “a Korean restaurant has finally opened in our neighborhood.” Of course, my interest was piqued so I asked more questions. The restaurant is Yuginong (or Yu Gi Nong), located in the space that was previously home to Sol Bowl and a Starbucks. They opened this past weekend.
Update: I hear only good things about Yuginong, with modifiers like “fresh,” “tasty,” and “very good.” I’m happy to know they are still going strong.
While I was perusing city documents, I saw that something called Ba Mee Thai Noodle House is slated to open on North Williams—the website says they are “opening soon.” Looking into this new business brought up memories of a number of now closed and beloved restaurants in two drastically different areas of Portland.