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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.
Fresh Hop Pop-Up Beer Fest
The Portland Fresh Hop Pop-Up Beer Fest returns for its 8th year in 2023 at Portland’s Prost! Marketplace on N. Mississippi Ave. The beer garden features ten food trucks and ten rotating taps. Each day of this 17-day fresh hop marathon will feature rare seasonal beers with special tappings nearly every day celebrating some of…
Pansy Division
There have been gay musicians hidden throughout rock music history, but Pansy Division, when it began in 1991 in San Francisco, they were the first to be so boldly open about it. Founded by guitarist/singer Jon Ginoli and soon joined by bassist/vocalist Chris Freeman, with the intent of forming a gay rock band, Pansy Division…
Chris Farren
On Born Hot, Farren fully embodies the sensitive-goofball dichotomy found in all his work, especially his exuberant live show: a solo performance in which he plays to live-recorded backing tracks while projecting purposely wacky visuals (his face duplicated thousands of times, text that reads "ANOTHER PERFECT SET" at the end of each closing song). By…
Erin Rae
Three years after the release of her critically acclaimed debut, Putting On Airs, Nashville-raised singer-songwriter Erin Rae shares an intimate, honest, and playful version of herself through her sophomore albumLightenUp.Produced by Jonathan Wilson and recorded in the musically hallowed grounds of California’s Topanga Canyon, the album represents Rae's sonic and inner shift. In it, she…
Casey Neill & The Norway Rats
'Sending Up Flares', the fourth record from Casey Neill & The Norway Rats, is the sound of a band rallying together, turning the genre-bending range of its influences into the group's most cohesive, cathartic album yet. Created amidst chaos and uncertainty, these songs offer a lifeline of stories about resolve, resilience, and wonder. A prolific…
Luna Luna and Michael Seyer
Austin-based, by way of Dallas, Indie quartet Luna Luna has bested the local climate and bent the scorching Texas sun to their will across emotion-drenched, euphoric, throwback synth-pop grooves. Originally the sole project of Colombian-born, Dallas-bred Kavvi Gonzalez, Luna Luna has grown into a four-piece through serendipitous meetings that has expanded to include Danny Bonilla…
Into It. Over It.
The recording project of Chicago-based songwriter Evan Weiss, Into It. Over It. finds the prolific emo-pop veteran of numerous bands (Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start, Labour, Map the Growth, the Funeral Bird, Hiroshima Mon'Amour, and Sleeper Agents, to name a few) striking out on his own. In Into It….
Blank Banshee
Patrick Driscoll, known professionally as Blank Banshee, is a Canadian artist, musician and producer from Saint John, New Brunswick. He rose to popularity in 2012 with his album Blank Banshee 0, which combined traditional elements of vaporwave with trap music, a style now known as vaportrap.
Kurt Elling and Charlie Hunter
Grammy Award-winner Kurt Elling is without question today’s preeminent male jazz vocalist, renowned worldwide for his unparalleled virtuosity and flair for trailblazing artistic exploration. From his stunning reinvention of timeless standards to his captivating original songcraft, the Chicago-based musician has fused his dazzling talents across various musical approaches, emblazoning each with signature imagination, insight, and…
Will Butler + Sister Squares
Sara Dobbs and Jenny Shore used to work in summer stock theater in St. Louis, Missouri. They’d do the hand jive with TV stars past and future; they’d get coldly corrected by the ancient, legendary choreographer Gemze de Lappe. Sara went on to Broadway, including a run as Anybodys in West Side Story. Jenny went…
Willi Carlisle
Willi Carlisle is a poet and a folk singer for the people, but his extraordinary gift for turning a phrase isn't about high falutin' pontificatin'; it's about looking out for one another and connecting through our shared human condition. Born and raised on the Midwestern plains, Carlisle is a product of the punk-to-folk music pipeline…
David Longstreth
David Longstreth is a Grammy-nominated songwriter, producer, and composer and is playing a series of Fall solo dates across the US to road-test new material for the next Dirty Projectors album and other projects. Longstreth founded the seminal indie band Dirty Projectors in 2002, earning widespread acclaim with the albums Bitte Orca and Swing Lo…
Armand Hammer
Armand Hammer, the groundbreaking NYC rap duo of ELUCID and billy woods, announces its eighth studio album, We Buy Diabetic Test Strips, out September 29 via Fat Possum Records. The duo’s new project arrives two and a half years after Haram, their labyrinthine collaboration with The Alchemist, and is introduced with their lead single "Trauma…
Babers
BABERS is an indie rock band fronted by Dana Cargioli (guitar and vocals) and Lisa Haagen (guitar, drums and vocals). On May 5, 2023, the band celebrated the release of their sophomore EP. The music sits in an incredibly catchy pocket that makes it undeniably pop- while serving syncopated rhythms and counter melodies that add…
Vincent Neil Emerson
Vincent Neil Emerson is a torchbearer of the Texas songwriter tradition. He channels the straightforward truth-telling and resonance of his songwriting heroes in Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, and Steve Earle into something fresh and distinctly his own. Where his 2019 debut Fried Chicken and Evil Women proved himself as one of the most reverent…
Kerala Dust
Kerala Dust’s new album, Violet Drive, is a record deeply affected and influenced by its surroundings. The band, formed in London in 2016, is now based between Berlin and Zurich, and the three Brits — Edmund Kenny on vocals and electronics, keys player Harvey Grant and guitarist Lawrence Howarth — have created a deeply European…
Tommy Prine
Tommy Prine's debut album "This Far South'' coming June 23, 2023, is not only a long-awaited introduction but a testimony to Prine's 20's and the loss, love, and growth that has defined them. Co-produced by close friend and kindred musical spirit Ruston Kelly and beloved Nashville engineer and producer Gena Johnson, the album is rich…
Leah Senior
Australian-based folk diviner Leah Senior silences audiences with vivid lyricism and a voice that soars with a disarmingly honest Sandy Denny-like clarity. Leah effortlessly weaves spring-time baroque pop playfulness together with a fragile blend of bedroom folk. Her fourth album, The Music That I Make (2023, Poison City Records), reveals Leah, at her most intimate,…
Michael Minelli
When Michael Minelli sings, you know it’s him. The Connecticut-born and raised singer/songwriter immediately sets himself apart with show-stopping delivery, dynamic range, and timeless panache. It’s no surprise he’s earned the praise of everyone from Ryan Seacrest to BuzzFeed. For Minelli, it’s all a matter of soul. “Soul is the core of everything,” he affirms….
Deeper
Deeper are a Chicago quartet whose mix of jagged post-punk and spare, sophisticated indie rock has earned national acclaim. After their 2018 full-length debut, the band continued to evolve their sound on 2020's dark, synth-heavy Auto-Pain and 2023's more stylistically diverse Careful!, the latter of which came out on Sub Pop.
CIVIC
One of the most exhilarating bands to emerge in recent years, CIVIC have reimagined the reckless intensity of proto-punk for an era of endless uncertainty. On their 2021 debut album Future Forecast, the Melbourne-based five-piece offered up a barrage of songs matching their frenetic sound with both self-aware outpouring and incisive observation of the world…
Matt Friend
Matthew Friend is an old soul living inside a 24-year-old comedian/actor/impressionist's body. Matthew graduated from NYU’s Gallatin School in 2020, but his love of comedy and entertainment was sparked when he was four years old. He had watched Austin Powers (yes, as a four-year-old) and started mimicking the characters’ voices — and the rest was…
The Macks
Described as walloping "heaviosity" threaded with streams of blues and thrash, The Macks have an unmistakable sound. In 2022, the band came out with their lockdown project, "Rabbit." That third LP was a raw and progressive take on rock and roll that launched The Macks towards tours and festivals like Treefort in Idaho and MonkeyBee…
Molly Burch
With a smoky voice and an affection for the vocal era, girl groups, and Brill Building pop, Molly Burch's yearning indie pop tunes encompassed infatuation, defiance, and despair on her 2017 debut, Please Be Mine. Inspired less by heartbreak and more by self-love, her third album, 2021's Romantic Images, embraced a more sparkling, pop-forward sound…
Holy Fawn
Holy Fawn is an American rock band from Phoenix, Arizona. The band consists of guitarist and vocalist Ryan Osterman, guitarist Evan Phelps, and drummer Austin Reinholz, with bassist Alexander Rieth also part of their lineup until 2023. They have released two full-length studio albums and two extended plays.
This Is The Kit
In today's fast-paced mid-apocalyptic world, speaking about time at all can feel like a waste of time. Why dwell on the past when we could just live in the present because the future won't shut up about how bad it's going to be? But with This Is The Kit, the pseudonym of songwriter/banjo strummer/pinhole camera…
Scream and Soulside
Scream is an American hardcore punk band from Washington, DC, formed in 1979 within the vanguard of the Washington, DC hardcore explosion. Known for their incendiary live performances — an urgent mix of punk and rock-and-roll swagger — the original lineup is vocalist Pete Stahl, guitarist Franz Stahl, bassist Enoch “Skeeter” Thompson, and drummer Kent…
Acid King
Adopting the nickname of notorious teenage slayer Ricky Kasso, Acid King came screaming out of San Francisco in 1993 with a sound that fused heavy ’70s proto-metal with the kind of bleary, slow-rolling dirge power being harnessed by their contemporaries in Sleep and Electric Wizard. The band’s 1993 debut, 10” was followed two years later…
Lola Kirke
Lola Kirke stands out like a flash of neon magenta in this nostalgic landscape of Americana tin-types. While many of her singing-songwriting peers look further back for inspiration, Kirke’s sweet spot is decidedly in the excess of the 80s. Anyone only familiar with Kirke through her on-screen performances (Mistress America, Gone Girl, or Mozart In…
Palehound
Palehound’s new album Eye On The Bat charts something that divides you into “before” and “after” — the danger of fantasy, of heartbreak, and the pain of growth, how we can surprise ourselves. It’s a documentation of illusions shattering both yourself and others. A tangle of raw nerves coming undone among swelling, propulsive instrumentation, the…
GIFT and Peel Dream Magazine
Every moment is a gift. Each moment has richness, complexity, and singularity. Once it's gone, it can't be recaptured. Can you be present? Can you open yourself up and appreciate it in its fullness — the ugliness, confusion, beauty, and joy? The Brooklyn, NY, psychedelic rock quintet GIFT members believe you can. Momentary Presence, their…
Margaret Glaspy
The third full-length from Margaret Glaspy, Echo The Diamond, emerged from a deliberate stripping-away of artifice to reveal life for all its harsh truths and ineffable beauty. Like the precious gem of its title, the result is an object of startling luminosity, one capable of cutting through the most elaborately constructed façades. “This record came…
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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