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In a tough hit for Old Portland aficionados, stalwart Northwest 21st Avenue coffee shop Anna Bannanas has closed its doors for good. The comfortable, quirky cafe had been serving coffee and sandwiches in town since 1990.
“We are CLOSED. Thank you for 35 great years,” reads a sign in front of the business.
The owners of Anna Bannanas did not respond to WW’s request for comment, but the Portland Business Journal, which first reported the news, cited financial struggles, such as the increased price of ingredients and reduced foot traffic on 21st, as reasons for the closure.
Anna Bannanas was once up to three locations in town: 1214 NW 21st Ave., plus one on Northeast Alberta Street and another in St. Johns. The latter two closed in 2014 and 2019, respectively.
As Slabtown and its condos, yoga studios and craft brewery tasting rooms sprang up in recent decades, Anna Bannanas remained a comforting reminder of the neighborhood’s former character, before the word Slabtown was in common use among realtors and developers.
It served espresso and sandwiches from its converted 1903 home with the generous porch and banana-yellow door and window trim. If the well-worn, squishy furniture and relaxed staff didn’t send a strong enough message that it was cool to stay awhile, then the plentiful magazine and newspaper subscriptions, decks of cards, and comic books scattered on every surface would finish the job. Baristas put out The New York Times’ daily crossword puzzle every morning near the register for customers to work on as they waited for their coffee, which made for a fun community project every day.
But nostalgia was doing all the heavy lifting in recent months when it came to the appeal of the Bannana. On a visit to the cafe this fall, the crossword puzzle was a good 3 days old, the magazines were also well out of date, and my colleague deemed her coffee undrinkable and poured it out a block away from the shop.
WW called the basement of the Northwest 21st Avenue location of the cafe a “hidey-hole heaven” in a 2017 story:
“Downstairs we found an alt-weekly meeting mecca—an unfinished stoner basement clubhouse straight out of That ‘70s Show—with sunken couches and chalk-covered concrete walls,” Sophia June wrote. “At times, a DVD playing on the basement TV will inexplicably be left showing the main menu, with a basket of microwave popcorn on top. Now WW’s culture staff meets there whenever possible—and the staff carries the coffee and pastries downstairs. It’s a special place: the kind that feels like it belongs to you and will forever belong to only you.”
Anna Banannas’ last day in operation was Dec. 31.