Portland Cafe Guide: Southeast

UPDATED 2018:

As soon as I started typing up my first post on Portland’s many wonderful cafes, I knew it wouldn’t be my last. It took me over a year to visit all the cafes on that first post, and I knew I had barely scratched the surface. Most of the additional cafes on this list have actually only opened in the time between my last post and now, so I’ve had a lot of catching up to do. I realize this is still not a complete list of all Portland cafes, so I will have to provide a disclaimer again that these are just the ones I find worth mentioning. Onward…

As a recap, I compiled this list based on a few factors: 

1) lattes
2) seating
3) atmosphere
4) decor. 

I am also dividing these posts into 4, because there are almost 90 cafes I am documenting and that’s too much for any one post. To break it down, I am focusing on one quadrant of the city at a time. I used to post them in order of favorites, but my tastes are fickle and new cafes are always popping up, so they are in alphabetical order instead. 

Neighborhoods:
SE
SW
NE
NW

Southeast Portland

The Southeast (SE) is my neighborhood. Most of these cafes are within walking distance to me, so you get bet if there is a new cafe that opened, I am one of the first to be there. The SE is home to a few hip spots in Portland, notably Hawthorne Street, Division Street, Belmont Street, Lower Eastside Industrial, and Sellwood. 

Albina Press on SE Hawthorne 

A late-night addition to the SE neighborhood - open until 8:00pm with ample seating.  Music is hit or miss - sometimes too loud and distracting to work. 

Belltower

Volunteer-run café in a church that switches out local roasters month to month. Pretty cool to work on your laptop from a church though.

Carnelian

Quirky gem-filled café in a desolate area of Foster Road. Excellent latte served in a special mug made this a unique experience. 

Coava on Hawthorne 

My preferred store to the Coava on Grand. More seating and a homey vibe, since it is on the first floor of an apartment building. Bonus points for having a fireplace!

Coava on SE Grand 

Coava's coffee is so good that their latte needs no sugar at all. I would probably rank this as the best roaster in Portland, though I don't go there as often as I would like to the limited seating at this location.

Dapper & Wise on SE Division 

For years this was my go-to spot on the east side. Excellent drinks and more importantly, it seemed like you could always get a seat at any time on the weekend.

Either-Or

The original Either/Or in Sellwood is a small shop with only a few antique chairs for seating, but their  unique Orgeat Latte (almond) is so good I keep coming back here just for that.

Elevator Coffee

Intense work space with an office vibe 

Foxy Coffee (closed)

Foxy is a small shop off Belmont street, tucked away in what seems like an attachment of a large  Victorian home. The space is open and well-lit but with only three tables getting a spot to work  can be a little tough.

Good Coffee on 12th 

A small and always incredibly jam-packed café. If you do get a seat, my favorite one is a corner that faces a window.

Good Coffee on Division 

Good Coffee on Division Street is my Monday- and sometime Friday-default. True to its name, the coffee is good, but so are the friendly staff, and the comfortable ambiance.

Groundwork

Decent seating and ok coffee. Tried it once. 

Heart on Burnside 

Another weekend favorite that I try to hit up before 10:00am. Heart is one of the best roasters in Portland and their café on Burnside has a great atmosphere.

Heart Woodstock 

I was excited about the new Heart outpost on Woodstock. Same great coffee and abundant seating, with more windows and natural light.

Jet Black 

A vegan café attached to vegan grocery Food Fight. Latte with soy-almond milk.

Kavehology 

Another Sellwood café with a decent selection and vibe. 

Kind
Popular coffee cart ion Belmont also serving delicious sausage breakfasts sandwiches and cannoli.

Marigold

Decent cafe in the Reed College area.

Never Coffee 

My favorite addition to Belmont. This very small place is perfect to visit on a sunny day to sit outside on their picnic benches. They have an amazing selection of sweet lattes with homemade syrups like Rich Kid, which is a rose water-saffron-cardamom flavored concoction, or the spicy Hug, made from cacao-chilies-and cinnamon. 

Nossa Familia on SE 3rd 

A newly-opened café in the chic industrial area, with beautiful greenery. Tables are not quite laptop-friendly, but this is a great place to have coffee meetings. 

Nossa Familia on SE Division

A much welcomed addition to the Ladd's Addition neighborhood, this Nossa Familiar has it's own unique ambiance and design. With Lisbon tiles, custom designed furniture and a tip jar with "thank you" in Portuguese, this cafe feels truly special. 

Oblique

Grungy bike café off of Stark. 

Oui Presse

A French-style cafe on Hawthorne serving the most amazing Cafe Au Lait with a beautiful ambiance. This has become my go-to place for cold, rainy winter evenings. 

Palio 

A old favorite in the Ladd's Addition neighborhood with a library vibe and great cakes. 

Peaks

Small coffee stand specializing in latte with homegrown mint

Push x Pull

Another 2017 newcomer that is also a roaster. Seating is uncomfortable and service was poor  (no menu!) which is very pretentious. Disappointing because I was so looking forward to their opening.

Rain or Shine 

A popular spot for meetings and studying in the Mt. Tabor area. Don't expect expertly crafted espresso drinks, but come for the get-shit-done vibe. 

Rocking Frog

This grungy outpost off SE Belmont is really a hidden gem. In a creaky old house this place makes a darn good egg sandwich and fresh donuts. I also enjoyed my charcoal latte, a rarity in this city. 

Roseline

My new favorite cafe on the goat blocks. Roseline is a popular roaster in Portland and finally opened a cafe in 2019.  

Soro Soro

One-of-a-kind Korean cafe off SE Burnside with the best latte art in the city, and amazingly photogenic cakes. Despite the Instagram appeal, this is also a nice space to get some work done on a weekday when they are not busy. 

Stumptown on Division

Decent Stumptown outpost with couch and table seating. 

Stumptown on SE Blemont 

My preferred Stumptown on the Eastside due to the small table (good for one person to work) and bar counter seating looking out over Belmont.

Tea Bar

Does this count as coffee? Probably not, but Tea Bar is still one of my favorite places to work. Lovely atmosphere, ideal seating, and great tea beverages.

Tov 

Bus retrofitted into an Egyptian café makes Tov a one-of-a-kind gem in Portland. Had some strong Egyptian coffee on the roof.

Upper Left 

Another favorite I strongly recommend. Great coffee, beautiful store, perfect seating, and great open -face sandwiches. I take many, many meetings here.

Water Ave Coffee

A popular local roaster with food options. Café has a great vibe but can get really crowded and loud. I used to work a couple blocks away so this and the Coava on SE Grand were my default morning stops.

Tijuana Diaries 2017

"It was 2:07pm when we walked past the cafe Baristi in the sun and it did not look like it was even beginning to open, although their website listed a start time of 2:00pm, which already seemed quite late. 

Time slides here, like ink across the page. 

A lone girl in a cafe writing about how and why she couldn’t sleep with a women from the bar she met the night before. Her thoughts filling the page of a notebook she would close and stuff into her purse and then take out with her info the world….

My friend took me to his favorite café instead, a place called La Stazione, for a drink that was not coffee but instead grapefruit with a jasmine tea. There I was surprised with the slow pace with which the barista squeezed the grapefruit juice into the glass. I was surprised that he used an entire grapefruit for this drink, and squeezed its juice by hand into the cup. It was like watching someone do it for the first time. His pace set the pace for the entire trip. Everything moves slowly. The pace of one’s walking was slow - to avoid potholes and dog poop no doubt. The service at a restaurant or cafe was slow. Double the time anything takes in America. No one rushes. No one checks their watches. I am alone in my worry of time.

We concluded the evening by having dinner and red wine on the top balcony of the Telefonica Gastro park. I didn’t see the sun set, I just watch the sky change colors and the lights come on overhead. It was peaceful, sublime.

Later that night we ventured out to every gay bar in TJ and we did not return until 5:30 in the morning. I had intended it to be this way. I would have been disappointed if it had been any other way.

At one point, we were sitting at Dandy Del Sur, the oldest bar in Tijuana. It was so crowded there was no room to stand, even line up at the bar. So we moved between tables, between couples sitting down, so that my body practically brushed up against their faces. My friend said they didn’t mind, probably didn’t even notice it. When we finally had a chance to grab a table after one couple left, the three of us were sitting close enough to kiss. I remarked how unusual that was in American culture. We had only just met and it would be uncomfortable to sit so close. My American friend explained that in Mexico people live on top of each other so that no one has any personal space. They don’t mind pushing past each other in a crowded bar, or having their limbs touch others in public spaces. I told him it was like sitting in the middle seat of an airplane, and asking the person beside you to move so you can use the bathroom. Then instead of getting up out of their seat, they just tuck their chin in. We laughed."

- Excerpt from my Diary,  October 21, 2017

End of summer dress

I'm pretty proud of the fact that I'm 5 months pregnant and still have not purchased any maternity clothes. I'm making due with loose-fitting presses and wearing my tunic open (since I can't button them). This is probably my last summer outfit for the season. Excited to see what the fall wardrobe has in store as I get bigger. 

Tunic: Zara

Dress: Urban Outfitters

Belt: Vintage

Shoes: Target

The Candy of Tijuana

This post is a little misleading...there isn't really special candy in Tijuana, it's all over Mexico. It's just that I don't need to go further than any Oxxo in Tijuana to get it. 

I love Mexican candy. I love it because its sweetness, tanginess, and spiciness. Basically all candy contains one or more of these five flavors:

Chamoy 

(dried ancho chilis, apricot, lime, sugar, and salt) 

Mango

Tamarind

Watermelon

Cajeta (caramel) 

The first thing I do when I get to Tijuana it to head to an Oxxo (like 7-Eleven) and buy candies. Here are a few photos of the ones I picked up on my trips.  

From left, clockwise:

Cone with Cajeta

Watermelon gummy with chili

Tamarind pulp flavored with mango

Tamarin pulp with Chamoy

From left, clockwise:

Lollipop with tamarind and mango

Tamarind pulp

Tamarind flavored with mango

Watermelon with chili

Waffle with Cajeta

Cone with Cajeta

Watermelon gummy

Watermelon gummy with filling

Mango gummy with filling

Panteón Municipal Uno, Tijuana Cemetery

The last time I went to Mexico in 2010, I didn't get a chance to go to a cemetery, which I greatly regretted. I had been wanting to go to a Mexican cemetery ever since, so on my first weekend trip to Tijuana, I made sure to go to one, even though I was only there two days.

We took an Uber to Panteon Municipal Uno, which I gathered was the biggest and mot accessible according to the maps. Although it was only a 5-minute ride from the Cecut, it felt like the middle of nowhere. It was right at the edge of the border where the great wall loomed large. The neighborhood around it scared me slightly, and I wouldn't want to be there at night.

Unfortuantely I didn't think to check the timing and we arrived at 4:15pm when the cemetery closed at 4:30. The guards were eager to get us out so I had to rush the photos.

A few things I love about this cemetery...the wild growth of succulents and cacti around the graves, the full-color Virgin Mary, and this very special grave, made up of toys and an inflatable spider man in the trees:

Grocery Store in Tijuana

I'm always fascinated my grocery stores in other countries, because they are so revealing of the local culture. I didn't have time to shop or cook food in Tijana (and with so many delicious street food options why would I?) but I did pop into this grocery store to see what was unique about it. 

This is Soriana, just off Revolucion Blvd. 

First thing I noticed was the bakery right at the entrance, with all the baked goods out in the open. In other bakeries I've seen around the world, the baked products are usually in glass cases or wrapped in plastic. 

There was also this large baguette slide in the middle of the store. This must be their best seller to have such a large supply. 

 There were a lot of products I didn't recognize in the produce section, but I bet I've eaten them in one for or another. 

Bottle of tajin near the fruit section. Tajin is a really spicy, tangy seasoning that is used in many Mexican dishes. 

The last thing I found interesting was the abundance of hard liquor. In America, most grocery stores cannot sell liquor - just beer and wine. Of course in Mexico, you can buy an liquor in the grocery store. The fact that this store is in Tijuana (a known party-city) and right off of Revolucion Blvd (the center of the party) it would make sense that this store would carry so much liquor for the tourists ad party-goers alike. 

Ghostland in polka dots

This past month I got to host another one of my friend's Ghostland events. I absolutely love working these events because they are so much fun. It's also my only chance to dress up like a ghost and still be in bed by 10:30pm. 

I am glad I finally got to wear this top and skirt together. I designed them six years ago and knew one day I would rock it. Didn't know I would be 5 months pregnant when I finally did wear it...

Top: Made by me, Spring 2012 Collection

Skirt: Made by me, Spring 2012 Collection

Sunglasses: from a vintage store on Melrose 

Necklace: from Urban Outfitters 15 years ago....