Pearl District
The chic Pearl District features galleries and cultural institutions, as well as stylish shops and acclaimed eateries.
In the Pearl, loading docks and cobblestone streets hint at this former warehouse district’s past, while stylish bars and gleaming lofts point toward the future. Read on for our favorite things to do and see in Northwest Portland’s Pearl District.
Where to Stay in the Pearl
A stay amid the condos and galleries of the Pearl District puts you in the heart of the city, with easy access to shopping, dining and cultural offerings, along with proximity to downtown, Old Town Chinatown and Northwest Portland.
Pearl District Bars and Breweries
From the Brewery Blocks sample some beers and bars in this chic neighborhood.
Where to Eat and Drink in the Pearl District
Start your morning or midday with a sip of espresso from Barista or La Perlita. If you’re looking for less caffeine find your way to Tea Bar and peruse their selection of tea lattes. For a quick bite, French-style bakery Nuvrei serves up beautiful pastries, or if you’re looking for a sunny lunch spot with outdoor seating, Lovejoy Bakers, offers a wide array of freshly baked bread and creative sandwiches.
Step into fine-dining spot Andina and enjoy live Latin-inspired music at adjoining Bar Mestizo before dining on cebiche, tamales, empanadas and other Novo-Andean tapas dishes at this celebrated Peruvian restaurant. Other Pearl favorites include Khao San serving authentic Thai food served in a Thai street setting. Pizza and Italian dishes made of fresh Northwest ingredients are on the menu at Piattino. Break Bread serves up Portland-style subs on local bread. Get your fill of sustainably sourced fish at Yama Sushi and Sake Bar. And for dessert, try Cool Moon Ice Cream.
Art Galleries in the Pearl District
This neighborhood is home to a huge arts community and First Thursday, a bustling monthly art walk.
Things To Do in the Pearl District
The Pearl District was once the art mecca of Portland, though you can find incredible artists and makers all over Portland these days, the Pearl still boasts some of the best galleries and a time-old tradition, First Thursday, when the galleries open their doors after hours and local artists flock to the streets to showcase their work.
For an urban area in the central city, the Pearl District offers more parks and green spaces than you might expect. Tanner Springs Park is a full city block of wetlands, walkways, stairs and sitting areas, providing a glimpse of the neighborhood’s pre-industrial roots. Jamison Square, two blocks to the south, features a fountain that creates a wading pool during the warmer months; The Fields Park, one block north of Tanner Springs Park, is a green space where you can get in some quality time with your friends, family or dog — or just lie back and soak up some rays.
Portland Center Stage at the Armory brings classic and contemporary theater in a beautifully transformed former armory, featuring a large stage and a smaller black box stage on the lower level. True to its origins, Portland Center Stage started as a mostly classical theater company, now commissioning its own plays from leading national playwrights and bringing the best new work to town from around the country.
Find Powell’s City of Books and Oblation Paper & Press, among blocks of big brand stores for all your shopping needs, from sports and outdoor wear to shoes, dresses and jeans.
Pearl District Events
Enjoy Portland's Pearl District at these upcoming events.
Work After Work
PDX CONTEMPORARY ART is pleased to present Work After Work, an exhibition featuring work by past and current gallery staff. Many employees working in the arts are artists themselves. This exhibition spotlights PDX staff's talent, vision, and creativity — presenting the work made when the work at the gallery is done for the day. …
FROELICK GALLERY: Tom Prochaska and Kevin Kadar
Froelick Gallery presents two outstanding solo exhibitions of new work by Portland artists Tom Prochaska and Kevin Kadar. Prochaska's solo features new and historic paintings plus work on paper. The Hallie Ford Museum of Art recently hosted a retrospective of his decades-long career; the monograph is now available. Kevin Kadar's show includes 12 new landscapes…
Kaliente Drag Brunch
Kharisma brings the heat with Kaliente, the newest Drag Brunch at your Stag PDX. Start your month with a bit of spice every 1st Sunday, with a show that has that extra kick that only Kharisma and her special guest performers can bring. Enjoy all-you-can-eat brunch options served from the buffet with mimosas available -…
Head Games Trivia Night
Live multi-media trivia every Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. Free to play. Win prizes. Teams of up to 6. Please arrive early for best seats. General knowledge trivia combines movie clips, sound effects, pictures and popular music to give players a one of a kind 2-hour experience. The pace is relaxed so there is plenty of…
First Thursday in the Pearl District
Starting in 1986, First Thursday in the Pearl is a district-wide celebration on the first Thursday of each month. Originally a gathering of art collectors and dealers, the celebration has grown to a monthly event of over ten thousand people, including art enthusiasts, wine aficionados, and scenesters looking to see and be seen. Art galleries in…
Sube y Baja
On July 28, 2019, three pink teeter totters were placed on the border wall of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas, which stands as the most-crossed border in the world and a continual site of political divide. For 45 minutes, these teeter-totters brought children and adults together to a wall that was made to…
Small Bites
Swing by for a quick bite of five sweet and savory plays by LineStorm Playwrights members Brianna Barrett, Heath Hyun Houghton, Holly Richards, Lolly Ward, and Ken Yoshikawa. Kick off the Fertile Ground Festival’s opening day with a toast at 5:00 p.m. before you taste the varied flavors of our short play selection from 6:00-7:00…
Floating Naked with Piranhas (How I l Learned to Love Working at Amazon)
"Floating Naked with Piranhas (How I Learned to Love Working at Amazon)" is not set in the distant future, nor is it a work of science fiction. It is rooted instead in the current reality facing nearly a million blue-collar Amazon workers, both in the U.S. and abroad — a world where every minute on the…
Exhale
A staged reading of Exhale, a semi-autobiographical play written by Jerilyn Armstrong. On the cusp of finishing college, Jerilyn’s father unexpectedly falls into critical condition. Returning to her hometown, Jerilyn confronts the unacknowledged lineage of mental illness and alcohol dependency in her family, her boyfriend’s infidelity, and her brother’s absent and self-destructive coping. Jerilyn must choose….
Finding Wild
A young scientist leaves behind her coldhearted family and aristocratic roots, moving into a rustic forester’s lodge deep in the woods of northern Poland. Forced to be neighbors with a stubborn, adversarial photographer named Lech, the equally stubborn Simona throws herself into saving the forest and its woodland creatures before it’s too late. Will she…
Write.Voice.Play!
When youth at risk are challenged to write and direct their own short plays, surprising stories of trauma, tenderness, wisdom, and wit erupt onto the stage. Write.Voice.Play! is an evening of student-created one-acts performed by some of Portland’s leading actors, workshopped and produced by PlayWrite, Inc. PlayWrite brings “youth at the edge” together with theater…
Life at the Edges & WILD/CAUGHT
A double-bill featuring Profile Theatre and Artists Repertory Theatre’s current mentorship programs. Community Profile offers “Life at the Edges” — five new 10-minute plays or excerpts by its current cohort, with themes ranging from the existential to the extra-terrestrial. The PATHWAYS cohort presents WILD/CAUGHT — in a salmon cannery in the Astoria waterfront, the assembly…
Bread and Roses
A reading of the 2024 Winner of the Portland Civic Theatre New Play Award By Portland playwright Timothy Krause Presented by Linestorm Playwrights during the 2024 Fertile Ground Festival of New Works In 1912 Lawrence, Massachusetts, Ellen, a textile mill worker, plans to marry Joseph, a mill manager from a prestigious Boston family. When Joseph implements…
PENANCE
LineStorm Playwrights Present: PENANCE by Matthew Miller A new play about contrition, confession and absolution. LineStorm Playwrights was established in 2016 as a nonprofit collective of Portland-area dramatists. LineStorm fosters the development of new and diverse works of theatre by member playwrights, sharing those works in progress with the general public to encourage dialogue and…
PULL
“At least 29 states allow individuals other than police or security officials to carry guns on school grounds, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. As of 2018, the last year for which statistics were available, federal survey data estimated that 2.6% of public schools had armed faculty. The count has likely grown.” —…
Strange Birds
When Jo and her forest ranger trainee find blood in the snow outside a remote mountain house, they suspect that something bad has happened. Can they figure out what before the storm hits? Jo’s old friend Lou might be able to help… or she might be involved herself. Strange Birds is about women, and wolves,…
True Life – A Shooter’s Story
The play tells the story of Winter, a boy who has suffered abuse, becomes an incorrigible adolescent and ultimately commits an atrocity. Winter is guided through his story by a counselor, Rachel Silver who seeks to help Winter face the reckoning for what he has done. It is Rachel’s hope that Winter will find a…
Cessair: How Ireland Was Born
According to Irish legend, when Noah — yes, that Noah — tells his granddaughter that there is no room for her on the ark, Cessair takes matters into her own hands. After a tumultuous journey aboard a discarded fleet, 39 women and one lone man land on what is now known as Ireland. This musical-in-progress…
The Alchemy of Steam
Ifeoma is a driven, brilliant and determined African American Studies student on her way to making her mark on the world. She is burdened by the extra effort that must be undertaken in order to compete in a country that wasn’t made for Black women. And then there is the matter of her tail. Tayir…
merry xmas & a happy new queer
merry xmas & a happy new queer begins with a story you've heard a hundred times — turn on the TV in December and you’ll see it again and again thanks to a certain greeting card company. But what happens when a queer couple disrupts that story? Turns out, it might be more slasher than…
Remote and White Noise
REMOTE: Working remotely and living remotely… is it a life of lonely isolation or the ultimate freedom? A woman moves to the backwoods of rural Oregon to re-frame her future, only to find her past comes knocking on her door. Mother Nature has met her match. Remote, by Sofia Molimbi, is a modern-day comedy about…
Encore: A Festival of Staged Readings
Artists Repertory Theatre is coming home. Join one of the decades with ART Encore: A Festival of Staged Readings each night. The journey begins with a Replay: An 80s Flashback, a trip through ART’s origin story with some founding artists. Then, journey through each of the subsequent decades, starting with the gripping Keely & Du (1994/95 Season), Speech &…
Central City Guide
The walkable central city includes the Pearl District, Northwest/Nob Hill and downtown.
Downtown and Central City Shopping
Downtown Portland boasts a wide array of shopping options, from major national and international retailers to locally owned boutiques and specialty shops.
Central City Activities
Walk to a wide range of entertainment in central city and downtown Portland including theaters, museums and parks that play host to festivals and farmers' markets.
Downtown Restaurants
Downtown Portland restaurants run the gamut — you'll find everything from budget lunch options at a multitude of food carts to delicious fine dining at acclaimed dinner spots in central city.
Portland's Central City
There's a lot more to Portland's urban core than Downtown, a center for retail, restaurants and cultural attractions. Goose Hollow is home to Providence Park soccer stadium, while the Pearl District is famous for upscale bars, boutiques and galleries. Old Town Chinatown offers streetwear shops, Saturday Market and Lan Su Chinese Garden and Northwest/Nob Hill boasts shopping, dining and access to Forest Park and the historic Pittock Mansion. East of the Willamette River, the Central Eastside offers family-friendly attractions, shopping and nightlife, while Lloyd is home to the Oregon Convention Center and the Portland Trail Blazers.
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