Portland Walks – Three Friends Coffeehouse and Cafe

In spite of the weather forecast, yesterday turned out to be a very nice day to be outdoors.  My wife and I took our fourth walk from the twenty walks list in our Portland City Walks book.  This walk (number 9), focuses on the East bank of the Willamette River.  The Willamette river runs through the center of Portland with commercial high-rises on the Westside, and light industrial on the Eastside.

In the mid to late 1800’s, the East bank of the river was a swampy area lined with sawmills and industrial manufacturing.  Now there is a wonderful esplanade that lines the river where people can sit and watch the city, run, bike and (like we did) walk along the river.  The esplanade also hosts several plaques and signs that provide historical information and photographs from the 1800’s of the river.

Our walk took us about three hours to walk the 2.7 mile course, as approached the final set of turns on the route, we read in the book that we could take a one block detour to a local coffee house on the corner of Ash and 12th.  We had not seen any other unique place to have a treat during our walk, so we decided to check it out.

The Three Friends Coffeehouse and Café looks like it is housed in either a very old bar or grocery store.  As we were quite warm from our walk and the sun, we decided to both have Italian Sodas – mine was blackberry and my wife had cherry.  We sat inside, sipped our drinks, and enjoyed the quiet ambiance of the coffeehouse.  I must say that I am still not quite sure why there are fake tombstones on the wall.

This was quite an interesting walk, and we really enjoyed the cool treat at the end.  With sixteen more walks to go, I look forward to uncovering new treat opportunities to share.

Walk 9, Grand Avenue Historic District to Eastbank Esplanade Loop, 2.7 miles, 3 hours and 15 minutes, 7219 steps.

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell