Mississippi
Enjoy live music, local shops and popular restaurants and bars on this historic North Portland street.
North Mississippi Avenue features a long stretch of vibrant shops, unique bars, music venues and restaurants (and is only a half-mile away from even more acclaimed eateries and bars on North Williams Avenue). Read on for our favorite things to do and see in Mississippi.
Where to Eat and Drink on Mississippi
Fried egg sandwiches and fluffy biscuits headline at Gravy. The signature gravy, served veggie or “country-style” loaded with sausage crumbles, is almost a meal on its own. At the south end of Mississippi, Ecliptic Brewing offers celestial-themed brews from legendary brew-master John Harris together with upscale fare.
Prost Marketplace provides a delicious introduction to Portland’s vaunted food cart scene, with mobile vendors serving inventive cuisine. You can enjoy your grub with a pint at on-site German pub Prost.
Local barbecue favorite, Miss Delta runs a hefty smoker behind their restaurant, smoking meats for hours before it gets served.




Lovely’s Fifty-Fifty serves some of the city’s best wood-fired pizzas and homemade ice cream — the salted caramel is addictive.
Blue Star Donuts, a Portland mainstay uses a traditional French brioche recipe as the base for classy pastries in creative flavors like blueberry bourbon basil and Cointreau crème brulee.
One of the district’s oldest businesses, Mississippi Pizza, serves its slices with generous sides of karaoke, trivia, bingo and live music — much of it geared toward kids.
Fans of Mee-Sen Thai can’t get enough of the Asian-market-in-a-warehouse vibe or the khao pad poo, a pungent combination of fried rice and sweet crabmeat.
Things to Do on Mississippi
Urban gardeners love wandering through verdant Pistils Nursery, where they can find plants, terrarium supplies, glassware, pottery and apothecary goods, gardening books and more. The nursery hosts “Living Art Workshops” on activities like staghorn fern mounting, terrarium building and houseplant care.





A great first stop for lesbian, gay and transgender (LGBTQ+) visitors is Mississippi’s Q Center, a community gathering place and resource center that hosts regular events.
At the homey Mississippi Studios, you’ll feel like you’re getting a private show — from major acts that could easily pack much larger venues. The attached BarBar rounds out the evening with a solid draft list and airy patio dining.
Sunlan Lighting the oldest business on bustling Mississippi Avenue, is a quirky specialty shop carrying light bulbs of all colors, shapes and sizes. Owner Kay Newell is also happy to share local lore and scrapbooks of vintage photographs and clippings with curious visitors.
Learn the basics of insect pinning at Paxton Gate, which includes materials and hands-on instruction on how to hydrate, preserve and display your beetle, grasshopper or butterfly. You can also shop for exotic plants, taxidermy, crystals, animal skulls, curios and mounted insects.






Shopping on Mississippi
Gourmet chocolate, wine, flowers — The Meadow stocks everything you need for a romantic picnic, along with specialty salts from around the world. Worn Path equips wilderness wanderers with sleeping bags, beanies, slingshots and other woodsy essentials.
The analog era is alive and well at Mississippi Records, specializing in international, blues and soul recordings. The shop has turntables, listening stations and even its own line of releases on vinyl and cassette.
The wide selection of comics and graphic novels at Rose City Comics attests to the number of comic book publishers and professionals in Portland — thought to be second only to New York City.
Even if you’re not in the market for a new door or bathtub, stop into the 40,000-square-foot ReBuilding Center to marvel at the array of recycled home materials, as well as the impressive tree sculpture surrounding the front entrance.
Online sensation Sock Dreams has its world headquarters on North Mississippi Avenue. So instead of ordering online, hoof it into their store for socks of all stripes: sexy, silly and, of course, soft. And for the discriminating toddler, there’s Black Wagon, a boutique that stocks high-end clothes and gifts for babies and kids.
Chock-full of locally crafted wall prints, tees and vintage-themed jewelry, Land makes it easy to curate a Portland aesthetic. (You may also recognize it as the place where over-zealous crafters “put a bird on it” in the first season of Portlandia.) Meanwhile, Flutter offers a “delightful disarray” of home décor, jewelry and fragrances.
For local shopping and fun, every July you’ll find the Mississippi Street Fair with live music on multiple stages, more than 150 local vendors, kids’ activities, a beer garden and more.
Mississippi Events
Explore what Mississippi Neighborhood has to offer at these upcoming events.

Spring Tonic Tea Blending Workshop
Harness the vitality the Spring Equinox ushers in with the joy-filled container of herbal tea blending. Participants will be invited to sample a Spring Tonic tea blend formulated by workshop author and facilitator, Artemis Divine. Sample simple teas of seven tonifying springtime plants that support energetic and physical systems, reflect on how plants can help…

deca joins
deca joins is an indie mandarin rock band from Taipei, Taiwan. The band consists of vocalist/guitarist Chingju Cheng, guitarist Shanghua Yang and bassist Junyan Xie. Some people say they sound a little bit like Fishmans and Mild High Club. In November 2018, the band released the album Go Slow. The video for the single from…

Deathchant + Kadabra
Deathchant Heavy music’s evolution has always been a murky swamp of sub-genres. So, combining Thin Lizzy’s glistening twin guitar harmonies with Melvins-grade sludge and a hearty dose of proto-metal psych probably shouldn’t sound so revolutionary as it does in the hands of L..A. quartet Deathchant. But theirs is a special, transcendent sound. Waste, the band’s…

PDX Spelling Bee
Join Mississippi Pizza on the last Wednesday of every month for a fun and friendly Spelling Bee for adults (though kids are welcome, too). This month is the one-year anniversary of this incarnation of the Bee, so there will be cake. There are two contests–regular and low-stakes–and great prizes. Each entry gets you a raffle…

NNAMDÏ
NNAMDÏ has never been able to stay in one place. The Chicago multi-instrumentalist and songwriter set a blistering pace in 2020 with his critically acclaimed genre-fusing LP Brat, a punk EP Black Plight, and Krazy Karl, a full-length tribute to Looney Tunes composer Carl Stalling. Add in his role as co-owner of label Sooper Records,…

Geeks Who Drink Trivia Night at Ecliptic Brewing
Modeled after pub quizzes in Ireland and the U.K., Geeks Who Drink is an authentic homegrown trivia quiz. It’s a great way to drink with friends without burning brain cells. And it’s where useless knowledge means everything. Quizzes cover everything from Hungary to The Hunger Games, from science to sports, from the Billboard Hot 100…

Dakota Theim
A songwriter with a gift for whimsical melodies, breezy productions, and introspective lyricism, Dakota Theim has been a mainstay on the Portland indie underground for years. His sound is largely inspired by the golden age of FM radio, laden with sunny harmonies and blissed-out guitars. With his latest releases, he is exploring new sonic territory…

Beyonce VS Rihanna VS Lady Gaga
Video Dance Attack Presents: Beyonce VS Rihanna VS Lady Gaga Portland’s longest-running video dance night, Video Dance Attack, is coming to Mississippi Studios. Join in for a very special showdown of three amazing divas: Beyonce, Rihanna and Lady Gaga. Videos from all three artists all night long on the giant video screen. Hosted by VJ…

Ladies Night with Troubled Youth
Ladies’ Night w/ Troubled Youth (founder and resident DJ of Judy on Duty) A night of slow jams, r&b, and smooth listening Troubled Youth, born and raised in Chicagoland, specializes in club music mixing multiple genres. Influenced by Chicago’s house, footwork, freestyle, and hip hop, their main focus is on joy and lifting you up.

Little Wings
Little Wings is Kyle Field’s band since 1998… Exploring themes of loneliness and togetherness with oneself and others, the music tries to capture through poetry the feelings of being human and match words with their appropriate tone and color. To be alive. w/ Generifus

Enumclaw
“I wanna wake up brand new” Enumclaw lead singer/guitarist Aramis Johnson sings in Save the Baby, their massive-sounding debut full-length, out October 14th via Luminelle Recordings. The album is a swing for greatness, a collection of life-affirming and deeply personal songs about the importance of chasing after your dreams. Not since Nirvana irrevocably changed the…

Blackwater Holylight
Blackwater Holylight, as the name suggests, is all about contrasts. It’s a fluid convergence of sound that’s heavy, psychedelic, melodic, terrifying and beautiful all at once. As a heavy band, their songs aren’t anchored to riffs, but rather riffs come and go in waves that surface throughout the band’s meditative, entrancing songs. It’s a hypnotic…

Debby Friday
The usual boom-and-bust cycles of growing up — breaking down, gathering the strength to get up, fumbling hard, doing it all over again – can feel unmooring, to say the least, but, according to DEBBY FRIDAY, its tragedies and glories need savoring. Losing illusions, gaining expectations; getting deep into the private, soupy kaleidoscope of what’s…

ORGŌNE
With a signature sound signified by lockstep rhythms and a deep grasp of soul and funk, ORGŌNE has built a reputation over the past 2 decades as being one of the tightest, fieriest live bands in the country and a top-notch crew in the studio. On their new album Lost Knights, ORGŌNE offers up a…

Haley Heynderickx (solo)
Haley Heynderickx’s songwriting is crushingly intimate, vivid, melodically inventive, and completely unpredictable. Her debut album, I Need to Start a Garden, seamlessly contrasts her unconventional tunings and American-Primitive-inspired fingerpicking with enveloping sonic outbursts. Led by her raw, immersive vocals, the Portland songwriter’s music defies categorization. NPR called her “an utterly distinct and wonderfully nervy, idiosyncratic…

Haley Heynderickx (& band)
Haley Heynderickx’s songwriting is crushingly intimate, vivid, melodically inventive, and completely unpredictable. Her debut album I Need to Start a Garden seamlessly contrasts her unconventional tunings and American-Primitive-inspired fingerpicking with enveloping sonic outbursts. Lead by her raw, immersive vocals, the Portland songwriter’s music defies categorization. NPR called her “an utterly distinct and wonderfully nervy, idiosyncratic…

Arietta Ward
Some people know how to take the tragic and make it magic. Arietta Ward is one of those people. The eldest daughter of the late, legendary Janice Scroggins, the sudden loss of her mother became the catalyst to solidifying her space on the stage – a space that Arietta, commonly known as Mz. Etta has…

Etran de L'Aïr
Etran de L’Aïr (or “stars of the Aïr region”) welcomes you to Agadez, the capital city of Saharan rock. Playing for over 25 years, Etran has emerged as stars of the local wedding circuit. Beloved for their dynamic repertoire of hypnotic solos and sun schlazed melodies, Etran stakes out a place for Agadez guitar music….

Jesse Daniel
It is no secret that Jesse Daniel puts on a live show. With his top-notch band, he’s been touring the country for years and earning fans the old-fashioned way; with honest songs played well. The California native is blazing the trail for a new wave of traditional artists, bringing his hard-core country music to stages…

Cursive
Cursive performing Domestica Over the past two decades, Cursive has become known for writing smart, tightly woven concept albums where frontman Tim Kasher turns his unflinching gaze on specific, often challenging themes and examines them with incisively brutal honesty. 2000’s Domestica dealt with divorce; 2003’s The Ugly Organ tackled art, sex, and relationships; 2006’s Happy…

Laura Stevenson
Laura Stevenson celebrates the tenth anniversary of her acclaimed and much-celebrated 2013 album Wheel with a run of shows at which she and her band will perform the album in its entirety, start to finish. For these performances, Stevenson will be backed by a string section and longtime rhythm section Mike Campbell and Sammi Niss….

Beltane Embroidery Workshop
Prepare for and honor the height of Spring with the art of embroidery. Learn three traditional embroidery stitches from workshop author and facilitator Artemis Divine, and call in a critical personal theme you can carry into the Summer months. Combining these practices, you will develop meaningful symbology to incorporate into a hand-embroidered talisman. This intention-infused…

The Bobby Lees
Iggy Pop, Blondie, and Henry Rollins…just a few of the Punk icons who support Woodstock, NY-based band THE BOBBY LEES. Their new album BELLEVUE was released on October 7, 2022, on Ipecac Recordings (The Melvins, Mr. Bungle, Faith No More) and was produced by multi-grammy-winning producer and mixer Vance Powell (Jack White, Chris Stapleton, Beyonce)…

Pearl & The Oysters
Florida may not seem like the most likely place for a whimsical French pop-loving band like Pearl & the Oysters, but it makes sense since the duo of Joachim Polack and Juliette Davis moved there from France. Using a kitchen sink’s worth of instruments, calling in sympathetic musicians, and showing off a very light melodic…

Ryan Montbleau (Solo)
For as long as he can remember, Ryan Montbleau’s been a seeker. From the jungles of Peru to the volcanoes of Hawaii, from the beaches of Costa Rica to the streets of Brooklyn, from the backseat of a 16-passenger van to backstage at Carnegie Hall, the acclaimed singer/songwriter has spent much of his life crisscrossing…

Brijean
Brijean is the duo of percussionist and singer-songwriter Brijean Murphy and multi-instrumentalist and producer Doug Stuart. Together they make dance music for the mind, body and soul, evoking 70s disco, 90s house and sly pop sensibilities. Their debut album, Feelings arrived via Ghostly International in February 2021, a golden-hued dream pop tropicalia of dazzling beats…

Beginner's Guide to Flower Essences
Not only are flowers pretty to look at and a vital food source for bees, but they also hold a sacred power. Deep within the dainty and brightly colored petals of a flower lies its spirit. This spirit can help us in ways other forms of herbal medicine cannot. Flower essences are a type of…

Wednesday
A Wednesday song is a quilt. A short story collection, a half-memory, a patchwork of portraits of the American south, disparate moments that somehow make sense as a whole. Karly Hartzman, the songwriter/vocalist/guitarist at the helm of the project, is a story collector as much as she is a storyteller: a scholar of people and…

Westerman
UK artist Westerman returns with his first offering in two years with the song “Idol; RE-run” out via Partisan Records. The new track, produced by James Krivchenia and Westerman, juxtaposes gentle and celestial sonics with an aggrieved disposition and features artwork by renowned New York via Portugal Graphic Designer and Illustrator Bráulio Amado. The song…

Sam Jay
Stand-up comic and Emmy-nominated writer (Saturday Night Live) SAM JAY can currently be seen on HBO’s Pause with Sam Jay, a weekly late-night series on which she serves as Host and Executive Producer and is currently in production on its second season. She will next be seen on the upcoming Peacock series Bust Down. In…

Lucrecia Dalt
Tracing a timeline of Lucrecia Dalt’s sonic trajectory is an elusive endeavor. As a musician, sound artist, performer, and composer, Dalt has traversed a myriad of musical portals, relaying innate sensory impulses and excavated references into luminous constellations. Shimmering with modulation and the incandescent tones of her voice, Dalt’s compositions summon magnetic atmospheres in her…

Ella Vos
Acclaimed for her dreamy soundscapes and psychedelic anthems, Ella Vos arrived on the scene with her 2017 single “White Noise,” which became an overnight sensation, debuting at #1 on Spotify’s Viral Charts. Her debut album, Words I Never Said, shortly followed with critical praise from Rolling Stone, HuffPost, Nylon, Coveteur and more. In 2019, Vos…

Tim Bernardes
Songs of love, of sofrência, and change from one of the shining hearts of São Paulo: Tim Bernardes. A Latin Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter, musician, composer, and producer, Bernardes has also collaborated with Fleet Foxes, Tom Zé, David Byrne, Gal Costa, Devendra Banhart, Shintaro Sakamoto, and more. Bernardes has emerged as one of Brazil’s most profound…

Ami Dang
Amrita “Ami” Kaur Dang is a South Asian-American vocalist, sitarist, composer and producer from Baltimore. Her sound blends elements of North Indian classical, noise/ambient electronics, beat-driven psych and experimental dance pop. The work references her hybrid identity as a first-generation South Asian-American, Sikh upbringing, musical education, as well as the chaos and spirituality of the…

Wild Child
After more than a decade of non-stop touring, acclaimed Austin songwriting duo Kelsey Wilson and Alexander Beggins quietly stopped touring as Wild Child — their accidental indie band conceived in the back seat of someone else’s tour van. Wilson joined the super singer-songwriter group, Glorietta, and debuted her genre-bending, Motown-influenced solo project, Sir Woman —…

Khemmis
Formed in 2012 in Denver USA, doomed heavy metal outfit KHEMMIS has released a body of work that paints a unique portrait of the human condition, weaving together influences from all corners of the metal music world. They transcend the genre boundaries of traditional doom metal with their elegant yet dramatic compositions and diverse influences….

Eugenia Riot
Eugenia Riot is the vibrant new folk creation from singer-songwriter Leigh Jones (Crow and the Canyon, Five Letter Word). Based in Portland, Oregon, Eugenia Riot explores the crescendos of love and heartache through relatable, lilting lyrics and moving melodies. Jones’ self-examining songwriting, fortified by indie-rock accompaniment, makes her debut LP “Can’t Wait to Miss You”…

John Craigie
John Craigie performs The Beatles Portland, OR-based singer, songwriter, and producer John Craigie adapts moments of solitude into stories perfectly suited for old Americana fiction anthologies. Instead of leaving them on dog-eared pages, he projects them widescreen in flashes of simmering soul and folk eloquence. On his 2022 full-length album, Mermaid Salt, we witness revenge…

Fox and Bones
Scott Gilmore and Sarah Vitort are Fox and Bones—energetic offbeat folksters with a retro pop-rock bent who have been setting the Pacific Northwest alight with a handclapping, foot-stomping good time since 2016. In the blink since their debut, the duo has brought their indubitable Americana polish to stages shared with the likes of ZZ Ward,…

Kassi Valazza
There is a cult-like fascination growing around Kassi Valazza following the self-release of her 2019 debut album Dear Dead Days, and her surprise 2022 EP, Highway Sounds. She is seated squarely at the vanguard of new American songwriters strengthening and broadening the sound of country music as she tours with celebrated acts such as Melissa…

Brick + Mortar
It’s not quite a punk band or completely polished pop act: B+M are organic. Their shows are ridiculous, but their songs have a message. Brandon Asraf is the man behind the music, drawing inspiration from his youth filled with anxiety, depression, and the social complexities of being the son of a con man, smuggler and…

Hermeto Pascoal
Few musicians have ever reached the stature of Hermeto Pascoal. A true maestro and a cultural icon, he represents the highest level of musical evolution; as a multi-instrumentalist, a composer and as an arranger. Hermeto is a Brazilian legend. He has worked with the greatest of the greats, such as Milton Nascimento, Tim Maia, Caetano…

Frazey Ford
On her third album U kin B the Sun, Vancouver-based singer/songwriter Frazey Ford inhabits a world of shapeshifting rhythm, elevating every beat and groove with the subtle magnetism of her mesmerizing voice. With its graceful collision of soul and psychedelia and sometimes ’70s funk, it’s a body of work that invites both self-reflection and wildly…

Big Richard
What began as an all-female festival collab quickly morphed into a serious passion project driven by sisterhood, harmony and humor……along with the shared desire to rage fiddle tunes and smash the patriarchy. Big Richard is a neo-acoustic supergroup made up of four well-established Colorado musicians: Bonnie Sims on mandolin (Bonnie and Taylor Sims/Everybody Loves An…

Ondara
Ondara’s new album, Spanish Villager No: 3, was predominately produced by Ondara and Mike Viola(Jenny Lewis, Dan Wilson) with contributions from Taylor Goldsmith and Griffin Goldsmith of Dawes, Sebastian Steinberg, Tim Kuhland Jeremy Stacey. The new collection of songs features a much more full, electric sound. Of the album, Ondara states, “This collection of work…

Bob Log III
So when you see a man in a jumpsuit and full-face helmet rigged up with a telephone receiver come barreling down the honky-tonk stairs in a lifeboat while beating away on a hollow-body guitar, don’t get out of the way. Jump right in there with him. And as long as you live, you’ll never forget…

Joshua Ray Walker
On his new album See You Next Time, Texas-bred singer/songwriter Joshua Ray Walker shares an imagined yet truthful portrait of a brokedown honky-tonk and the misfits who call it home: barflies and wannabe cowboys, bleary-eyed dreamers and hopelessly lost souls. His third full-length in three years, the album marks the final installment in a trilogy…

Jason Boland & The Stragglers
For the past 20 years, Jason Boland & the Stragglers have dazzled audiences as one of the leading ambassadors of the Oklahoma and Texas music movement. With millions of fans cheering him on, over 500,000 records sold independently and ten albums later, Boland is a career musician whose legacy continues to grow. From his early…

Olivia Jean
The third full-length from Olivia Jean, Raving Ghost, is an album populated by mysterious characters in various states of danger: cursed lovers, doomed souls, and women deliriously haunted by unseen forces. Throughout its 11 spellbinding tracks, the Detroit-born singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist amplifies that drama with her wildly melodic take on garage rock, handling each riff with the…

Parker Millsap
Parker Millsap quickly made a name for himself with his captivating live performances, soulful sound, and character-driven narratives. He’s had many successes, including an appearance on CONAN, a performance with Elton John at the Apple Music Festival, an Austin City Limits taping and an Americana Music Association nomination for Album of the Year. He’s shared…
Illustration by Subin Yang
North Portland Neighborhoods
Sometimes called the “Fifth Quadrant,” North Portland encompasses a range of neighborhoods and commercial districts, including St. Johns, Mississippi/Williams and Kenton. Attractions include the St. Johns Bridge, Portland International Raceway, Peninsula Park Rose Garden and Smith and Bybee Wetlands Natural Area.
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