Pearl District

Portland is less affordable these days in many ways, but you can still see evidence of the vibrant creativity the city attracts almost anywhere you go.

Brian and I ended up talking a little bit about the Pearl District, even though it wasn't on our walking tour.

There's a lot to like about the Pearl District, you know, and there's really two Pearl Districts.

There's the southern portion of the neighborhood that had a historic urban fabric of old warehouses that we really reimagined in a creative way.

Places like the Widening Kennedy Advertising Headquarters, which are wonderful to behold.

and you know the portland armory that turned this old armory into the home of portland center stage and then you go to the northern pearl district and it was more of this blank canvas because they converted old rail yards into a neighborhood and there was a lot to like there they had a master plan that created these wonderful parks and we have those today like jameson square park and Tanner Springs Park.

And there are some individual condo buildings that are pretty decent.

I write about a couple of them in the book.

Great question.

We started working in his apartment in the Pearl District before the film began.

And yes, I couldn't believe I was sitting on a couch in an apartment working with Patrick Stewart.

I had to keep pinching myself, Lars.

weren't doing this, that's what I would be doing.

So I would tell the audience next time you're in Portland, go to Jenkins in the Pearl District, belly up to the bar.

You'll find Todd there wearing his velvet tuxedo from his supper club days, drinking a grasshopper, talking cosmic horror and philosophy.

That's right.

But the whole city had been that area.

The Pearl District had been built around it.

Which Portland is more creative?

Well, I mean, Tyler lives in the other Portland, and it's also like that, you know? It is also like that.

In this week's episode, our conversation with Kurt Huffman goes over what's going on in the Portland food world now, um, in 2026.

We know, um, his, uh, Oven & Shaker just closed in the Pearl District, so we get into a conversation about neighborhoods, east side, west side, suburbs, what works in Portland, what doesn't necessarily work, what you can count on working, and what you don't know when you open a restaurant.

And Kurt, with Chef's Table, has opened dozens of restaurants over the years.

He's certainly one of the most knowledgeable people when it comes to our food scene, and he knows, of course, he supports a lot of our wonderful chefs, does the back end of it, I suppose.

Takes up an entire city block.

It's a cool store, in Portland's Pearl District.

It boasts-

Wow

Early on, she writes, Northrop Shelter opened a year ago as a key component of Keith Wilson's sweeping plan to curtail homelessness.

It had 200 beds in the Pearl District.

It was the centerpiece of the whole plan, and it lasted one year.

Then she quotes the mayor from April explaining why it had to go.

But then that would mean that those people would have to live among them.

No, they won't because they can't afford a condo in fucking Pearl District and they're not going to be sitting up in the West Hills.

And they're not going to be stepping into

Canard for dinner.