Portland joins food hall revolution

Two years in the making, Portland is soon to get its first indoor food hall this fall.

Pine Street Market — a 10,000-square-foot space that will house nine small restaurants, plus 20,000 square feet of office space — is slated for a late fall or early winter opening at Southwest Second Avenue and Pine Street.

Just blocks away from the waterfront, next to light rail and smack-dab in the middle of Old Town’s revitalization, the market has been a hotly desired space for chefs and artisans to get into.

Picking just the right mix hasn’t been easy.

“This is one of the city’s most iconic historic buildings, and Portland restaurateurs increasingly want to be downtown,” says Mike Thelin, culinary curator for the space and a co-founder of national food events including Feast Portland.

“There was so much interest (in the market), honestly, that the most challenging part has been narrowing down the tenants.”

More than 150 vendors were interested in the project, says Thelin, who is working with owner/developers Dave Davies, Jean Pierre Veillet and Rob Brewster.

Just nine food tenants will occupy the market, five of whom have been made public and the others who’ll be announced soon. The five to move in are Olympia Provisions (making hot dogs), Hopworks Urban Brewery (beer and pretzels), Barista (artisan coffee), Marukin Ramen (chicken ramen bowls), and Trifecta Tavern & Bakery (bread, pastries and a toast bar).

All but Marukin are based in Portland. It will be a third location for Hopworks and Olympia Provisions, a second for Trifecta and fourth for Barista.

For Marukin, a Tokyo ramen shop, Pine Street will be its first U.S. location, sought out to honor Old Town’s Japanese heritage.

“This is always the challenge in Portland,” Thelin says. “There is so much creativity that there are too many great choices — a great problem to have.”

While this will be Portland’s first food hall, it’s modeled on others around the United States (such as the uber-hip Gotham West Market in New York City and historic Grand Central Market in Los Angeles), and worldwide (Mercado San Miguel in Madrid and Mathallen in Oslo).

Portland’s project also is steeped in history.

Built in 1886, Pine Street Market was known as The Carriage and Baggage Building, used as a livery and horse-drawn carriage storage facility until the early 1900s.

The building’s interior is timber-framed, with high ceilings and authentic Douglas fir beams.

In 1969 it became home to Portland’s first Old Spaghetti Factory until the restaurant relocated in 1981.

Since then, the ground floor has housed a string of nightclubs with storage on the upper floors.

In this next era, Thelin — a fourth-generation native Portlander — says he and the project’s three owner/developers have been extremely community-minded in planning the space.

While the building is next to Kells Irish Pub, a block from Stumptown and Bijou Cafe and the startup clusters at Block 300 (a brand-new green office building development in Old Town), Pine Street Market is still a stone’s throw from the grittiness of West Burnside.

Thelin and his crew say the food revolution they’re bringing to the historic neighborhood is meant to add to the revitalization.

“We are a group of mostly native Portlanders who love this part of Portland and the opportunity to do something positive in it,” he says.

As other food halls open across the country, time will tell whether it’s either a fad or the Next Big Thing.

Earlier this summer Chef Todd English opened the Plaza Food Hall in New York City; a food hall called UrbanSpace Vanderbilt is set to open not far away.

Mario Batali’s Italian-themed Eataly food hall in New York also is a test of sensory overload, described in New York magazine as “more like a circus, with lots of food.”

Portland’s project, by comparison, will be much more tame — but, organizers hope, just as enticing.

Pine Street is being financed by banks, as well as historic tax credits approved by the National Park Service, because the building is part of the Skidmore/Old Town National Historic District.

Pine Street Market, 126 S.W. Second Ave., will be open seven days a week, with later hours on Saturday and Sunday.

For more: http://www.pinestreetpdx.com.

@jenmomanderson