Skip to main content
If you see a line wrapped around the block in downtown Portland at about sunset, odds are it’s to see a show at the Crystal Ballroom or Roseland Theater. Or, perhaps, it’s to get a free hot meal a few blocks east on West Burnside Street at Blanchet House. The 73-year-old organization slings more than a thousand plates a day across its three meal services six days a week to people experiencing homelessness. “Our goal is to restore dignity in people’s lives and give them a real restaurant experience,” says Julie Showers, Blanchet House’s communications and PR director.
This experience is accomplished with the addition of a host stand, fresh cut flowers on each table, and, on a recent Friday, a live pianist in the corner. The cafe also welcomes about a dozen or so furry, four-legged friends at each meal service. “Sometimes there’ll be 10 dogs, all howling together,” recounts a volunteer.
Earlier in the week, a diner arrived with a wagon full of pit bull puppies. Today, though, only a few pups showed up with their owners. One dog, an 8-year-old German shepherd named Miracle, was helping the staff with cleanup by licking food crumbs off the floor before her owner, Kam, broke down and gave her a plate. “I take her everywhere with me,” says Kam, who’s been coming here for the past few months.
A few weeks ago, Miracle was attacked by two English mastiffs but is making a swift recovery. “I never have any issues bringing her here, though,” Kam says.
In addition to its people-oriented services, Blanchet House also has resources for companion pets and service animals. After all, as many as 1 in 4 homeless individuals in Portland are pet owners, according to a stat Portland Animal Welfare Team executive director Cindy Scheel shared with OPB in 2017. The cafe offers pre-portioned kibble bags and water bowls for the pups, as well as a free supply closet stocked with collars, harnesses, treats and cans of wet food, among other things. “Sometimes it can be hard to get them food,” says diner Sean, looking down at his rambunctious 5-month-old black and white Boston terrier, Cash, who alternated between ferociously attacking his kibble and messily slurping up water. “But this is a great place,” Sean adds.
Once a month, the nonprofit hosts a pop-up pet clinic outside with volunteer veterinarian Dr. Robert Mack, who, with a sign that reads “Ask the Vet,” provides medical advice, consultations and referrals to other community clinics, as well as flea and tick medication and other necessary supplies. Twice a year, the Oregon Humane Society has set up in the unused lot next door and offered a vaccination clinic, although Prosper Portland recently discontinued Blanchet House’s access to that space, making the clinics difficult to host. “This month, it’s going to be in the garage,” Showers says of the upcoming clinic March 20 as she holds flyers for OHS’s Community Veterinary Hospital and Pixie Project, other vital resources to which Blanchet House directs clients.
Looking around, it’s obvious Blanchet House cares about its animal friends just as much as its human ones. One wall of the 60-seat dining room features a mural from the recently released short graphic novel Toby Finds a Home, written and illustrated by Pacific Northwest College of Art students to teach kids about the complexities of homelessness and food insecurity from the perspective of an orange tabby cat. As fate would have it, the cafe had its own Toby story in the form of a small black cat named Otis, who frequently hung out outside and wandered in one day, seeking refuge in the kitchen. “He lives on the farm now,” says Liz, a volunteer-turned-staff member, referring to Blanchet’s residential recovery farm in Carlton.
They also talked about Sylvester, another famous cafe cat who can be seen perched on diners’ shoulders, but was fashionably absent that night.