Belmont
Visit this Southeast Portland street for great local flavor, surprising history and unique things to do.
Located a few blocks north of Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard, Belmont Street stretches from the Eastbank Esplanade to Mount Tabor Park, and boasts its own mix of vintage and indie shops, coffee shops, bars and food carts. Read on for our favorite things to do and see in Belmont.
Where to Eat and Drink on Belmont
Coffee
Never Coffee pours delightful coffee drinks that highlight all of the flavors, like their Holy Grail with Bee Local honey and Jacobsen sea salt and tellicherry pepper. With their unique roasts and innovative drinks, makes this coffee shop a must-try for any adventurous lover of coffee.
Fueling up at Portland coffee-staple, Stumptown, at their corner coffee shop that’s great for a quick cup before wondering the shops of Belmont.
If you power up better with coffee, conversation and live music, TaborSpace is a great spot to get your battery charged. A community coffee house located in Mount Tabor Presbyterian Church, this warm gathering spot is lit with stained glass windows and infused with the smell of Nuvrei pastries and locally brewed coffee. The site of weekly live music, art classes, workshops and more, it’s a welcoming place for all people, regardless of faith.
Belmont's Best Eateries
Here are a few of our favorite spots on this Southeast Portland street.
Bevs and Brews
Nestled in among the shops, The Bite on Belmont, a food court of carts, with favorites like Hindsight Beer Cart serving pints (and wine, too), and Dinger’s Deli a vegan sandwich cart.
For the love of beer, Hose Brass Pub has you covered with lists of drafts and bottles from around the world. Serving authentic eats like scotch eggs, steak and kidney pies, this English-style pub is a great spot for catching up with friends.
Good Eats
For a quick, healthy meal good for the whole family, try Laughing Planet. At the Belmont Street location, similar to their restaurants scattered around town, find toy dinosaurs on every table and have some fun while you eat.
Healthy bowl pop-up turned brick-and-mortar, Feel Good, offers grain bowls with local grown food, for quick and casual, yet a beautiful dining experience.
Chef Katy Millard of Coquine draws on her experience at five Michelin-starred French restaurants to craft spectacular seasonal plates, such as Black Futsu squash or brioche shrimp toast. With the in-house sommelier, Ksendak Podbielski, you’ll be able to pair your meal with the perfect bottle of wine.
Nowhere is that more evident than Nostrana, a romantic Italian restaurant that packs them in every day but Sunday for flavorful wood-fired pizzas, rich pasta dishes and expertly mixed cocktails. James Beard Award nominee Cathy Whims’ timeless recipes — like Dungeness crab bruschetta and pancetta-wrapped goat — highlight the finest regional ingredients from local farms.
Learn More About the Surrounding Area
How far is Belmont from Downtown Portland?
Is there a park nearby?
Belmont Attractions
These five Belmont landmarks are all local favorites.
What to Do on Belmont
In what was once the center of the City of East Portland, Belmont holds a lot of history, from the Historic Belmont Firehouse that currently serves as a museum to some of Portland’s oldest parks, like Colonel Summers Park on Southeast Belmont and Southeast 20th Street, that was created in 1921. Today is has a community garden, softball field, volleyball and tennis court, a splash pad and a restored brick picnic pavilion. Walk a few blocks north to Laurelhurst Park, acquired in 1909 from the land of early settler and former Portland mayor, William S. Ladd, and explore the paved, tree-lined trails, several ponds and the native flora.
Want to hear an amazing tale? Some of Portland’s best stories can be found at Lone Fir Pioneer Cemetery, just north of Belmont. One of Portland’s oldest cemeteries, Lone Fir invites visitors to connect with the past through a quiet stroll or on a monthly guided tour that highlights some of the graveyard’s famous residents, like one of the city founders, Asa Lovejoy.
For history that’s still above ground, video rental store Movie Madness doubles as a museum of sorts (besides the fact that it’s a living, working rental shop). Devoted to rare and obscure films, they also have original costumes on display from movies such as The Godfather II, The Wizard of Oz and The Sound of Music.
And if you want to escape to a time when video games only cost a nickel, Avalon Theatre has you covered. Their two small screens show classics and second-run movies, while their arcade buzzes with skeeball and whack-a-mole games (as well as some newfangled digital fare, to boot).
Shopping
Belmont storefronts are filled with vintage stores, used books, and trinkets. Still straddling the worlds of old and new, Belmont is home to many shops that have been in the community for decades. Serving the pagan community for many moons, Moonshadow is a spiritual shop for books, crystals, and deepening your practice in the ancient arts. In true Portland fashion, you can also find small, independent bookstores filling their shelves with local authors and zines and books that are off-the-beaten-path. Belmont is no exception; try Belmont Books.
Find your way over to SE Stark Street to Glasshaus Gardens, a boutique shops that goes beyond houseplants with gorgeous pottery and plant care accessories by hosting earth-inspired artworks, from crystal skulls, to canvas bags to stained glass.
If you’re in the market for restored vintage leather goods, then stop into Mix Tape, and check out their fabulously curated vintage and restyled selections. Naked City Clothing will spruce up your wardrobe, offering retro-inspired fashion, accessories and wacky novelties at this funky shop.
Events For All Ages
One of Portland’s quintessential Christmas traditions is a trip — on foot or in a horse-drawn carriage — down Peacock Lane. For the last two weeks of December, the houses on this street just off of Belmont are decked out in true holiday spirit with thousands of little sparkling lights.
And every September, the Belmont District Street Fair attracts roughly 10,000 people with live music, food and local vendors celebrating the vibrant neighborhood.
Upcoming Belmont Events
Get to know the Belmont neighborhood at these upcoming events.
Sol Elicio Presents: EXPRESSIONS DJ Night
There are many ways of expressing yourself. This event is special because this curated lineup aims to really showcase some people who express themselves in an admirable way. Expect to hear all flavors of dance music across the globe in this diverse lineup. From house and techno to garage, breaks, DnB, juke/footwork and more. …
Belonging with Museum of Light and Fox Medicine
Museum of Light Their debut record, Horizon, pulls between two poles: big, crushing, overwhelmingly heavy riffs and dreamy, Zen-like washes of ambiance and found sound. Horizon is a lush, dense, and cinematic record, but without the self-seriousness and lack of restraint that underscores many other releases within the genre. In a time where there are truly…
Sing-A-Long Ride
Come along and sing well-known songs. Submit your song requests to Moorland or volunteers before the start or at any of the refreshment stops made. There will be a big sound system, disco lights..maybe even a fog machine. There will be karaoke at stops and sing-a-long songs on the ride. This ride was one of the…
First Friday PDX
Located in Portland’s vibrant East Side Arts District, the First Friday Art Walk takes place on the first Friday evening of every month year-round. Offering a gateway into Portland’s thriving arts culture, First Friday PDX includes more than 23 independent galleries, shops, and studios and a street exhibition from April to October. The self-guided tour…
MirrorEye Preservation Society Presents: Salo Panto with Pusla and TV Viking
Salo Panto: Since 2015, Salo Panto has been exploring and bending every corner of the rock genre. Rooted in psychedelia, with a stage presence that will blow your hair back, they are commonly described as "a sight to behold." Their technical skill and original hooks pay homage to the legends of rock while transforming the genre…
Slam Piece with Mike Mannequin and Easy Bruiser
Slam Piece was born in Milwaukie, Oregon in October of 2017. This two-man band creates a full sound and epic jams. Punk in essence but melodic at the core, Slam Piece brings a primal energy to sing-along choruses with lyrics that speak to a positive spin on life in an increasingly brutal world. Mike…
Sugarcoat Tour: Blushing with Helens and Shadowlands
Blushing (Instagram | Spotify | Bandcamp) On their recently completed third LP, Sugarcoat (releasing May 3, 2024), Blushing’s dynamism is on full display, flitting effortlessly from spacey psychedelia to twee pop jangle with finesse and panache. Having once again enlisted Ringo Deathstarr's Elliot Frazier and Ride's Mark Gardener for engineering, mixing, and mastering duties. Sugarcoat is a dense, reverb-laden…
Free Reiki in Laurelhurst Park
Free Reiki from 3rd Generation Therapist @ Laurelhurst Park every 3rd Saturday Reiki and Guided Yoga Nidra afterward. This is a great way to meet the therapist and see results.
The Hip Abduction with Satsang
Florida-based outfit the Hip Abduction create a sunny amalgam of reggae, West African, and effusive indie pop. Formed in St. Petersburg in 2010, the six-piece ensemble arrived at its vibrant sound thanks to its members' collective interest in fusing the music of the world's sunny climes with a strong, melodic pop sense.
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
Since the early '90s, Ted Leo has been one of the most progressive forces in East Coast independent music, with a unique combination of punk and folk, soul and hardcore, and tradition and experimentation. Originally rising to a small degree of fame in the late-'80s New York hardcore scene by playing with Citizen's Arrest and…
Belmont Street Fair
The Belmont Street Fair is one of the largest-attended street fairs in Portland. With food and retail vendors of all kinds, show-stopping performances and live music on 3 different stages, and the first-ever Kids Zone, there are activities for all ages, the Belmont Street Fair is fun for everyone.
Future Islands
If Future Islands’ songs once seemed like invitations to witness scenes from someone else’s life, People Who Aren’t There Anymore presents the whole absorbing saga, transmuting hurt to hope in the triumph of this band’s career. Here is excitement, devastation, understanding, and the dawn’s rays of redemption in 44 minutes — a record that, at…
Tokyo Police Club
Formed while in High School in Newmarket, Ontario just north of Toronto, Tokyo Police Club have forged a two decade career creating infectious power indie pop, over the course of five full-length albums and one of the most acclaimed debut EPs of all time, with performances across the globe, from Coachella to The Late Show…
Explosions in the Sky
End, the enigmatic seventh album by Explosions in the Sky, was inspired by darkness but became a loud, dramatic, wild rumination on life and death. “End” is perhaps the “grandest” Explosions in the Sky album — melding the quiet restraint and crushing feel of their early releases with the sonic texturing and ornate experimentation of…
Boris
In 2024, Boris will undergo a tour performing all the songs off their first album, already reaching a quarter-century since the release of that 1st album, “Amplifier Worship”. Boris has been in constant pursuit of their own ideal “heavy” since their formation in 1992. From the outset they became like a chimera, evolving at a…
Summer Salt
This June, trop-pop outfit Summer Salt — formed around the duo of singer/guitarist Matthew Terry and drummer, multi-instrumentalist Eugene Chung — will release their fifth LP, Electrolytes, via their new record label AWAL. Produced by Carlos de la Garza (Paramore, Ziggy Marley, The Linda Lindas), Electrolytes’ first single, “Poolside,” droped on March 29. Electrolytes follows…
Bonny Light Horseman
Bonny Light Horseman joins the Jagjaguwar family ready to embrace life’s wonderful, abundant chaos. Confident and generous, their lead single, “When I Was Younger,” kicks off the band’s most vulnerable and bounteous era to date. Over the years, Bonny Light Horseman has accumulated many miles on the collective odometer of life. The band’s core trio…
Nation Of Language and Blonde Redhead
Four years on from the release of their unexpectedly self-assured debut album, NYC-based Nation of Language has attracted a rapidly growing international audience via their danceable and impassioned take on new wave, post-punk & shoegaze genres. Following the critical acclaim of their first LP Introduction, Presence, its 2021 follow-up A Way Forward pushed them to…
Underoath
UNDEROATH reinvents the balance between chaos and harmony with each successive release. Their compositions, conjured from creative tension, become iconoclastic anthems. Even when the band almost combusts, the crackling energy coalesces into something deeply resonant for millions. Each time they have a chance to do something safe, Underoath challenges themselves instead, with integrity and attitude….
Croce Plays Croce
After 50 years and more than 50 million records sold, Jim Croce’s legacy as an iconic singer/songwriter is firmly cemented. A.J. Croce, a Billboard charting singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and performer, returns this fall, bringing Jim’s classic songs to the stage with his “Croce Plays Croce 50th Anniversary Tour.” After 10 studio albums and 30 years…
Dusty Slay
Slay has close to half a million Tik Tok followers, Four Late Night appearances, a Comedy Central set and a Netflix Half Hour Special under his belt. He enjoys selling out comedy clubs across America on weekends, then chills out at home in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife Hannah and daughter Daisy. He’s even a…
Marc Broussard
Marc Broussard is an artist with a unique gift of channeling the spirits of classic R&B, rock, and soul into contemporary terms. His father, Louisiana Hall of Fame guitarist Ted Broussard of “The Boogie Kings,” nurtured his musical gifts at an early age, and the vibrant Lafayette, Louisiana music scene allowed Broussard to practice his…
La Femme
La Femme is an enigma, a mystery. Since 2010, La Femme has toured all over the world, singing mainly in French. With retro-futuristic sounds, the group has toured the United States, South America, Europe and Asia. Their records are journeys, each song has its own importance, and their shows are feasts. They have released five albums,…
Brad Williams
Pound for pound, Brad Williams is the funniest comedian in the country right now and has become one of the most in-demand comedians working today. Williams started doing stand-up comedy as a teenager and has been touring successfully ever since, routinely selling out prestigious venues all over the country and the world. Williams has parlayed…
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