Skip to main content- WINE UP: His nine-year-old wine bar closed in December, but Wine Down owner Stuart Herold is already back in the restaurant game with Wine Down East, a “wasabi bar and bistro” set to open in mid-April in the Northeast Alberta Street building that last housed Zaytoon. His partner in the new venture is Sushi Town and Umi Sushi owner Seung Jo Yoo.
- FIREHOUSE IN THE HOLE: The Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, North Portland’s 28-year-old performing arts venue, will shut down May 1, Portland Parks and Recreation announced Friday. The reason: constant budget shortfalls. The cost: one of the most vibrant venues in the city, which has incubated artists from Third Rail Repertory Theatre to its own creative director, Adrienne Flagg, who performed at IFCC as a teenager. “There is no doubt in my mind our company would not be where it is today if it weren’t for the advocacy of the IFCC, ” Third Rail Artistic Director Scott Yarbrough tells WW. “I think Portland is losing a much-needed advocate for multicultural programming. ‘Cultural’ was the driving word in the title of the organization, and I believe that the loss will be felt...in the city as a whole.”
- SOME DAYS IN AUSTIN HAVE COLD WEATHER: While Portland bands were hitting the taco trucks at SXSW last week (see feature, page 31), two Portland directors were making splashes of their own. Aaron Katz’s mumblecore mystery Cold Weather was dubbed “the first unqualified hit of 2010 SXSW Film Festival” by LA Weekly critic Karina Longworth, while Filmmaker Magazine wrote that Matt McCormick’s Some Days Are Better Than Others “lingers in the mind like a good Haruki Murakami short story.” WW caught up with McCormick when he returned from Austin. “Every show was sold out,” he said. “It felt real good.” But McCormick picked up a bad head cold on the trip, which he blamed on the constant parties. “On the Aaron Meshian scale [of drunkenness], I only got to about 50 every night,” he said. “But my body was definitely not ready for that.” Photo courtesy of Some Days Are Better Than Others.
- CRAIGSLIST JOB POSTING OF THE WEEK: There are still jobs being offered in Portland. It’s just that some of them are not technically in Portland. They are in the middle of the ocean. According to a March 18 Craigslist post, a “well respected Seattle based fishing company” is looking for “Hardworking; Dedicated; and Good Attitude” people to work as fish processors “aboard proven vessels AT SEA.” (Not on land.) The company is holding a mandatory orientation meeting at 11 am Wednesday, March 24, in the Portland Hilton Executive Tower for potential fish processors who’d like to live on a proven vessel off the coast of Alaska. Warning: The house-party scene is not as good there.
- WEB CHIC: Do those hand-stitched couture jeans from Japan make you look fat? Is cassis the new black? Why the hell is Saks closing? Two of these questions are pondered—and one is even answered—in recent Retail Therapist blog posts (blogs.wweek.com/retailtherapist).
WWeek 2015