1) The City - The city of Portland is darn lovable. It rocks fall foliage all the way through November, and it even wears clouds well. We love the overcast skies of autumn and winter, because they keep out the wimps. You like tall buildings? We got “Big Pink” poking the sky right there. You like nature? Gaze just beyond the buildings and you’ll see giant evergreens peeking over from the hillsides.
2) Art - Portland is a great place for art lovers. We’ve got the Portland Art Museum and countless smaller galleries and cafes that show art. Many artists call PDX home, including Jon MacNair, Amy Ruppel, and illustrators Josh Kenyon and Colby Nichols, AKA Jolby. Here’s a photo from a Jolby show this past year at Albina Press.
3) Friends - How could we not love Portland? It’s home to so many of our friends and loved ones. PDX is infamous for fun loving antics as well. We know how to have a good time here, day or night. Here’s a classic shot of Team Grove outside the Portland Art Museum.
4) The Wilderness - Portland is surrounded by beautiful scenery, which makes sense in Oregon, a state boasting a treasure trove of gorgeous landscapes. The towering evergreens lend a magical quality to Portland’s surrounding forested areas. Walk straight from Portland’s dense Northwest neighborhood into Forest Park for miles of serene hiking. Bursting with moss, ferns, and douglas firs, the Pacific temperate rainforest is green year-round!
5) Donuts - Need we say more? Yes, we know everyone is aware of the awesome offerings at VooDoo Doughnut, but our personal favorite is Delicious Donuts. Better get there early before they sell out, though!
6) Coffee - Portland is the land of coffee aficionados, yes, but us normal folk also benefit from the plethora of local coffee shops and roasteries around every corner. We’ve got Stumptown, we’ve got Ristretto Roasters, we’ve got Water Avenue, and we’ve got a personal favorite, Get About Coffee, which had its badass beginning at local Roller Derby bouts!
7) Music - Portland’s got a wonderful local music scene, and is always bringing in great acts from out of town as well. One of our favorite things to do here is check out a show at a local venue. This past year, Astoria, Oregon’s Blind Pilot played with the Oregon Symphony at the ritzy Arlene Schnitzer concert hall downtown.
8) Food Carts - It’s simple really - we’ve got a whole population of food-loving, tough-skinned, hard workers in this city. We needed to figure out how to fit the most convenient, unique, locally made, yummy foods as we could into our available space; the answer was food carts. Around every corner, there’s a little pod of food carts popping up and staying open late.
9) Business - We’ve got a wonderful local business community in our corner of Oregon, including countless smaller operations like us (Grove!), Bridge & Burn, and MapleXO, medium-sized ones like Leatherman and Pendleton Woolen Mills, and giants like Nike and Adidas. Check out the above picture of Team Grove on a field trip to Leatherman last winter.
10) Bridges - There are eight, soon to be nine, bridges just in the downtown area of Portland alone. We don’t call it Bridgetown for nothing! This city knows how to get from point A to point B in style. Bridges here connect one neighborhood to another, one side of the river to the other, and yes, they look good too.
See, it’s your favorite city now, isn’t it?
