One question people regularly ask me is, “Where should I go for coffee in Portland?” Sometimes I stumble over the answer, because Portland has so many good cafés. While I would like to send them to all my favorites, I usually just give them two or three suggestions. When the SCAA Event came to Portland earlier this year, for example, I put together a few coffee tour ideas for visitors.
To make life easier for Portland’s coffee explorers, a group of friends and I have been working on a side project called the Caffe PDX SmartMap. Located at caffepdx.com, the site is designed to make it easier for you to find the best cafés and coffee shops in Portland. It highlights thirty of our favorite cafés around the city. We visited the shops, took some pictures and wrote up some descriptions that capture the spirit of each one. Visit Caffe PDX’s About page to learn more about our team.
Caffe PDX - click the image to check it out
Our goal was not to list every café in the city (Google does that quite well already). Rather, we wanted to highlight cafés where we are confident you will get a good cup of coffee and a unique Portland experience. Ultimately, the plan is to create a mobile app that will put a café guide in your pocket, but that is still under development. If you sign up for email updates (right-hand sidebar, this page), I will let you know as soon as it is ready.
When you visit Caffe PDX, click on a café name or on one of the map pins to bring up a quick snapshot of the café. Click ‘More info’ to bring up larger photos and the full café description. Caffe PDX is still “in beta” (the tech people tell me that’s code for the testing phase), so you might come across a bug or two that we will be weeding out over the next few weeks. Time permitting, we will also add more features and maybe a couple more cafés.
Use the site to plan a weekend coffee adventure with your friends. Share the site with others so they too can find good coffee. Drop us a line and let us know what you think. We’re always looking for ideas of how to improve things.
Most importantly, have fun exploring Portland and enjoy your coffee!