Gossip Should Have No Friends

  1. VERMONT IS FOR PIZZA LOVERS: The most fascinating structure at the Art Institute of Portland’s super-tasty opening party for its new culinary school program (artinstitutes.edu/portland) last Thursday was actually outside the school’s new Park Blocks digs: a 6-foot-high, 6-foot-wide wood-fired mud oven belching fragrant smoke clouds. “The one in the restaurant’s gonna be even bigger, about twice the size,” says oven builder Matt Wilson. The East Coast transplant is launching his own pizza restaurant, American Flatbread, this winter in the newly renovated General Automotive Building at 411 NW Park Ave. The restaurant, the West Coast outpost of Vermont’s mini-empire of natural- and local-ingredient-obsessed AF eateries, will serve crisp, hot, earthen-oven pizza made with Portland meats and veggies sourced from local farmers (there are plans for an in-house brewery to follow). But right now, it’s the unfinished restaurant’s view of the North Park Blocks that’s inspiring Wilson. “We’re all about community. We want to sponsor a bocce tournament, ” he laughs. We think they’ll fit in around PDX just fine.
  2. BOOZE NEWS: Portland may soon be home to yet another microdistillery—Stone Barn Brandyworks has applied for a license for a warehouse just south of Southeast 19th Avenue and Powell Boulevard. The business is registered in the name of Sebastian Degens, manager of planning and development for the Port of Portland. Prost!, a German-themed bar and restaurant, has applied for a license at 4237 N Mississippi Ave.
  1. TWEET THING: In the days following its crucial role in the Great Dave Chappelle Happening, Julian Chadwick’s PDX Pipeline website—and especially its Twitter feed—has taken on the mantle of a real-time snopes.com, debunking rumors of celebrity visits as soon as the stories surface. On Friday, July 24, for example, the site followed word of Lil Wayne appearing at Barracuda (no dice, though his labelmate J-Sean showed) and declared the following: “New info indicates that the Dave Chappelle @ Roseland/Slick Rick show rumor is bunk.” (A hopeful soul had claimed Chappelle never left Portland, but had instead been dwelling anonymously among us.)
  2. VOLUNTEERS: Want to check out WW’s MusicfestNW—the best five days of live music Portland hosts all year long—but you’re strapped for cash? Volunteer! Work at a MusicfestNW venue for one night of the festival and get a free fest wristband (regular price $60) and T-shirt in return. Email volunteer coordinator Matthew King at volunteerMFNW@gmail.com to apply by Sept. 4. IMAGE: Jeff Walls

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