In
Search Of: Portland's Bermuda Traingle restaurant locations
It's inevitable. The restaurant business is as rocky as the
West Hills after a particularly bad mudslide. Every year,
some fine restaurants end up eating it themselves and closing
up shop. Why did Restaurant X go belly-up? Is it true the
owner of Bistro Y went undeniably insane and had to split?
The rumors and innuendo swirl.
We've decided to put on our detective caps and try to sleuth
out the details surrounding the demise of some recently
departed restaurants. Of the unlucky 13 below, 12 have been
featured at some time in our guide to the best eateries
in Portland. With roughly 2,400 restaurants in Multnomah
County, and another 800 in Washington County, it's clearly
not enough just to be good--you have to be good, lucky and
in the right location. Even then, there are no guarantees
you'll survive. We pulled our best Quincy, putting the silver
scalpel to the bodies of the deceased.
ABYSSINIA * 801 NE Broadway
Cuisine: Ethiopian
Year of Birth: 1994
Year of Death: 1999
Autopsy Results: Abyssinia always looked more like
a deserted storefront than a small cafe. Some patrons said
to-go orders were quick, while dining in tended to be a
drawn-out affair. Still, people liked Abyssinia. What happened?
According to a member of the Gessesse family, which owned
the restaurant, the woman who leased them the building either
gave or sold it to her church. "It didn't close because
there wasn't enough business or it was financially mismanaged,"
said Roen Gessesse, sister-in-law of principal owner Teddy
Gessesse. "The lady just wanted to get rid of the building."
Now some family members are considering opening a new place
with a simpler menu in Las Vegas. Teddy Gessesse plans to
open another restaurant in Portland, but hasn't yet found
the right location.
AMERICAN PALATE * 1937
NW 23rd Place
Cuisine: American bistro
Year of Birth: 1996
Year of Death: 1999
Autopsy Results: In an early review we wrote, "The
first few times I drove by American Palate, it didn't look
promising...not won over by neon signs boasting 'great food.'"
Now the neon signs are gone, but the owners aren't: Earlier
this year, co-owners Kimmy Wartena and Paul Doeg opened
the Back Porch Barbecue at the same location. "It was certainly
a difficult decision," said Wartena. "After three years
of hard work and energy, it was a huge leap of faith to
break down the old space and start over. But after just
five months of the new project, we already think it's been
well worth the effort. For starters, the Back Porch has
been much more fun for us than the American Palate. Customers
went to the American Palate to celebrate special occasions,
to have an 'experience.' Check averages were quite high;
expectations and anxiety levels were usually comparable.
Our new customers are out for a relaxing evening of gnawing
on bones."
AVALON * 4630 SW Macadam
St.
Cuisine: Quasi-Southern
Year of Birth: 1994
Year of Death: 1998
Autopsy Results: Death by committee. "Ultimately
there is something corporate about the place and its fare,
as if the menu had been planned by a committee to impress
a business dinner crowd," we wrote in our Jan. 18, 1995,
issue. Apparently, the business dinner crowd was not impressed.
Avalon was almost too refined for its waterfront home, and
the truth is, inhabitants of the Macadam area are more inclined
to hoot it up at Who-Song & Larry's than some highbrow
cocktail compound. Sherwood's on the Water floats here now,
and unless it's offering body shots, it may fall into the
same boat.
CAFE SOL * 1135 SW Washington
St.
Cuisine: Tapas/Spanish
Year of Birth: 1998
Year of Death: 1998
Autopsy Results: ¿Y tu, Tapeo? When
chef Ricardo Segura opened Tapeo (WW's Restaurant
of the Year in the 1997-98 guide) in Northwest Portland,
it was only a matter of time before other fine--but not
as fine--restaurants bit it. This town just may not
be big enough for more than one outstanding tapas bar. Cafe
Sol tried two spots. The first was a small one on Southwest
9th Avenue that was just right for the lunchtime tapas-seeker.
A move to a larger space on Washington Street was a stab
at expanding the empire, but there was very little momentum
behind a dinner scene. Death by dinner tapas.
DELFINA'S * 2112 NW Kearney
St.
Cuisine: Italian
Year of Birth: 1979
Year of Operation: 1998
Autopsy Results: Delfina's was Italian before Italian
here was cool, but with so many other trendy restaurants
popping up over the strip, Delfina's began to feel a little
stodgy. And with so many other exciting places to go to
with similar prices, Delfina's slowly but surely joined
the "out" crowd. Something had to give.
Epilogue: The spot survived a heart transplant to
become Serratto in April. Just as Delfina's had Italian
lessons piped into the restrooms, so does Serratto. Owner
Michael Cronan and new partner Stephen Gomez injected a
staid Italian menu with a sure-shot upgrade. "Our price
points are a little higher now, but the offering is substantially
different, more refined," says Gomez. Cronan also owns Caffe
Mingo, which opened in 1992, so Serratto maintains Cronan's
hold on the Northwest Portland Italian dining experience.
INDIGINE * 3725 SE Division
St.
Cuisine: Indian/global
Year of Birth: 1973
Year of Death: 1999
Autopsy Results: There was a time when you literally
could not get a weekend reservation at Indigine--it was
booked years in advance. Known for its seven-course dinners
that crossed the globe, Indigine was the destination for
anniversaries, proposals and all things celebratory. So
what happened? Could even a once-beloved Portland institution
become a casualty of an oversaturated restaurant market?
The sad answer is yes. Its closing was "purely financial,"
says owner and chef Millie Howe. "Of course when you say
that, there are myriad reasons for it being that way. When
people found out it was going to close, we did nice business.
We were given bouquets and things, but that didn't make
up for nights when it sat empty." Howe said she thinks there
are simply too many restaurants competing for Portlanders'
dining dollars. "I miss it terribly," she continued. "In
fact, I'm looking for a job. I'd love to cook somewhere."
THE IRISH BANK * 409 SW
2nd Ave.
Cuisine: Irish pub
Year of Birth: 1997
Year of Death: 1999
Autopsy Results: This place most likely confused
itself into oblivion. "Why the menu sports a Caesar salad,
a warm goat-cheese salad, a T-bone steak with cayenne mayonnaise...and
Thai curry is as much a mystery as the fact that a recent
Lord Mayor of Dublin was Jewish," we wrote in December 1997.
And really, do we need another Irish pub downtown when we
have Kells?
MOOREFIELD'S * 6401 SW
Macadam St.
Cuisine: Floridian/Mediterranean
Year of Birth: 1998
Year of Death: 1999
Autopsy Results: Verbose menus and lavish interior,
complete with tapestry runners and emerald walls, couldn't
save Margaret Moorefield's establishment from its quick
expiration. "Each item on the menu receives two or three
lines of prose description, dominated by obscure terms,
adjectives changed to nouns, puzzling quotation marks and
sheer accretion," we noted in our initial review. Again,
this high-falutin' joint suffered from Macadamitis. Do you
really think OPB employees are going to shell out big bucks
for fancy cuisine?
SQUARE PEG * 422 NW 8th
Ave.
Cuisine: Mediterranean
Year of Birth: 1996
Year of Death: 1998
Autopsy Results: It remains unclear why this adored
downtown lunch spot went under. Some have speculated that
it simply wasn't able to get anyone to show up for dinner
and couldn't survive on lunch alone. Square Peg had "all
the fun and wonder of a fling that turns into an unexpected
long-term romance," we wrote in our 1996 review. Instead,
its culinary courtship of Portland was unexpectedly short.
TOULOUSE * 71 SW 2nd Ave.
Cuisine: Fern Bar meets French country cooking
Year of Birth: 1995
Year of Death: 1998
Autopsy Results: This hotsy-totsy dinner establishment
died for Bar 71's sins. "We're in the entertainment business.
Like everyone else, we want to be busy from 11:30 to 2 in
the morning," said Jeff Plew, vice president of operations
for Concept Entertainment Group, which managed Toulouse.
CEG, which still operates the Gypsy, the Lotus and Quest,
decided to fold Toulouse into Bar 71. "We had fine dining
on the left side and hip dancing on the right side; it was
hard to market both entities," Plew said. "We took what
we believed to be the better idea of the two and made one."
Bar 71's menu continues to feature some of the French elements
once available at Toulouse.
TRIBECA * 704 NW 21st Ave.
Cuisine: Chi-chi Nouveau
Year of Birth: 1994
Year of Death: 1998
Autopsy Results: Who did these hoity-toity pimps
think they were, anyway? Coming to Northwest 21st all mack-daddyish,
stealing Robert DiNiro's restaurant's name and thinking
they could one-up the likes of Zefiro and Wildwood. Hmph.
If their attitude didn't kill them, Karen Brooks of The
Oregonian did. In one of the most scathing reviews the
grande dame of Portland dining has ever written, Brooks
wrote, "The waiter tells you that the crawfish cakes are
'to die for,' but save your life and order something else."
She later noted, "The kitchen did not major in seafood."
And still, she added, "It's hard to eat a bite of food here
without someone running over to your table and exclaiming,
'Are you lovin' it? Is it wonderful?'... After a while you
wish you could hang out a 'Do Not Disturb' Sign." She ended
the review with a quote from Tolstoy. Enough said.
28 EAST * 40 NE 28th Ave.
Cuisine: Medi-Franco-Nor'West
Year of Birth: 1995
Year of Death: 1997
Autopsy Results: What went wrong with this seemingly
excellent restaurant we called "a welcome addition to the
east side?" Could it be the Bermuda Triangle effect (see
sidebar), which quickly claimed Alligator Pear at this address
and now looms over recently installed La Buca East? Stay
tuned.
WATERZOIES * 2574 NW Thurman
St.
Cuisine: Faux-Belgian
Year of Birth: 1995
Year of Death: 1999
Autopsy Results: When this place opened we said
the menu was "hard to categorize," but that probably wasn't
the only problem. Waterzoies had the right instincts to
make the place homey by setting up in a real house, but
with all the level-planed dining rooms with glass windows
beckoning from all sides in the Northwest part of town,
Waterzoies just kind of lost itself. Plus, it was right
across the street from a laundromat--not exactly atmosphere.
In
Search Of...
They
turn up on a corner, all ready to serve, and then disappear
without a trace. Mysteriously they are replaced, and then
their replacements disappear. Investigators have few clues
about how Portland's own Bermuda Triangles manage to swallow
so many restaurants.
40 NE 28TH AVE.
Since 1995, the first two restaurants
on this list have reared their heads at the same spot and
then--poof!--disappeared. La Buca just moved in. Cheap eats
in this neighborhood anchor better, so La Buca East is likely
to last.
1995 28 East
1998 Alligator Pear
1999 La Buca East
2074 NW LOVEJOY ST.
This spot has been a killer.
Maybe it's the off-street location, or perhaps it's the
way trendy, pseudo-regional cuisine always seems to park
there. With true-blue Indian restaurant Swagat now in residence,
it seems as though the string of bad luck might be forever
gone.
Cajun Cafe (exact date undetermined)
Moxxie 1995
Bountiful Bento and More 1995
Andronico's 1996
Cafe Rios (exact date unknown)
Swagat 1998
1121 SW STARK ST.
As
fast as the million-beats-per-minute music blaring from
the neighboring Stark Street gentleman's clubs changes tunes,
so do the restaurants that set up shop at this pink Bermuda
Triangle.
Fairfield Cafe 1965
Georgia's Cafe 1976
City Fare Restaurant 1982
Roxy Hearts Memorial Diner 1983
Houston's 1993
Blah Blah Cafe 1995
The Roxy yet again
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Willamette Week | originally
published October 13,
1999
|
