Time To Move On.

That’s it.

That’s my stump speech. 

This is what I tell people when they tell me how much they miss the old Portland. When they mask their skepticism with romanticism and their cynicism with nostalgia. None of it, ever generates any real ideas or plans to make the Portland of now better. 

Time to move on.

This is not the same city of ten years ago. 

In fact, this is not the city of six years ago, or even two.But it does still have the thing that has and will always make it great: Its hospitality. 

Indeed, there was a time when many came to Portland for its day trips and beautiful outdoors. 

And before going on those insta-worthy hikes they’d stop to fuel up and pick up a box of donuts: Pips, Voodoo, Blue Star, Heavenly, Doe’s…

At the end of those hikes, they’d recharge at food carts and on craft beer… sometimes craft beer at food carts!

Somewhere between all of that, they would take a break before heading back out to ball out for dinner at places like Le Pigeon, Paleys Place, Langbaan, Ataula… 

but not before pre- or postgaming at Pepe, Kask, Shift Drinks, Green Room, etc.

That was the formula. And it only ever existed because of Portland’s culinary scene that made Portland relevant in the first place. It existed because Feast gave Portland’s food scene national credibility. Sprinkle in a few celebrated beer festivals, some summer concerts, and even the occasional marquee sporting event and there was no city that could touch Portland. This place was big enough to be relevant, but small enough for tourists to experience every quadrant and every one of its micro-neighborhoods over one weekend.

It still is. 

This vibrant scene I just described took years to come together and only a few months to fall apart. We can blame Covid for destroying our momentum as well as our local economy. We can blame our hyper-liberal political values for destroying the beauty and cleanliness of our city. We can blame the (lack of) leadership of our elected officials. We can go even further and blame Ted Wheeler because, like any bad relationship, we can look back at it all and say to ourselves “what the fuck were we thinking?”. 

My point to this picturesque rant is mostly to remind anyone willing to listen that we are never going to have that version of Portland back. 

Time to move on. 

The true identity of Portland is not the “dream of the nineties”. It is not “where young people go to retire”, or some maxim we stole from Austin. It’s not even necessarily our beautiful wine country, or our world-class green spaces. It is our culinary scene that, even to this day, even after covid, even as restaurant margins have gone from 18% to 1%, far outpaces the size of this city in its quality and accessibility. Why are we complaining about the lack of tourism, and lamenting the old Portland, and then publishing entire pieces demanding that we stop calling Portland America's best pizza city… Why?

I am going to say this again, everyone came here because of the food. Why don’t we let them? Why don’t we encourage them?

When restaurants thrive in Portland, everyone gets paid: the landlords, the hotels, the airbnbs, restaurant vendors, the builders & developers, renovation crews, the people leading excursions to so called “experiences” around the city… everyone.

My friends, the Portland of ten years ago, was mostly dictated by the vision and actions taken two to four years before. Same with the Portland of six years ago. If you don’t like the Portland of two years ago or even the Portland of now, blame the actions (or lack thereof) of those in positions of power, who did not do enough to protect, champion, and support our reputation as the greatest food destination in the country. Look at the last great event around food, it happened almost four years ago, and it was the last Feast event, which, despite its iconic greatness, was merely a shadow of the pre-covid events that transformed the city. And so, when that all ceased to exist, it left a void in the conversation. 

I can show you drastic spikes in revenue at every one of our establishments on the weekends where big conventions are happening around this city. More conventions = more sales. 

More nationally-recognized events = more sales

How do we get more conventions, more events?Start by celebrating our amazing food reputation, clean sidewalks, innovative ideas, progressive views (not hyper-liberal bullshit), and the most recent one: celebrating the diversity in the establishments that are nationally recognized.

I am not here to hype you up with some “Portland’s best days are ahead” bullshit. Nor am I saying that “things around the city aren’t all that bad“... fuck no! Contrary to that bathroom potpourri of a message by that marketing campaign not long ago, Portland is not what you make it, it is what you build it intentionally and boldly to be.

Ultimately, words without actions are the assassins of idealism. (yes that’s a Herbert Hoover quote)

Food is what got us to where we were before Covid and food is what will move us to a new Portland.

Everything else is just politics. 

The people who understood this, began sounding off the alarm long ago. The ones who still don’t are still relying on the leadership of newly elected city officials and a Mayor who would rather eat at a fucking Olive Garden than in our local establishments. 

Take what you want from that last statement and think what you must of the current state of things. At the end of the day, the Portland you are seeing right now was dictated by the actions we took yesterday. And so if you want to see a different version of this city four years from now, the time is now to take drastic actions. 

And for the love of everything holy that is left of this city, move on.