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"Enjoy a glass of beer or wine while you shop!" reads the sign. It is perhaps the most wonderful sign in all of Portland.
World Foods is the Pearl District outpost of what's probably my favorite grocery store in Portland, Southwest's chaotic and lovely pan-ethnic grocery store Barbur World Foods.
But as of Jan. 23, the Pearl World Foods is vying for the throne. To the right of the entrance, it's installed a 13-seat coffee, wine and beer bar called Pilcrow (830 NW Everett St., 802-0755, worldfoodsportland.com), named after the funny backward P that marks a paragraph break.
The pub's not much of a looker—just a neutral-toned elbow of a bar curled around the only coffeemaker in Portland wholly devoted to Olympia Coffee. But the taps pour $5 pints of Heater Allen Pils, Breakside IPA and Pfriem CDA, not to mention $6 wild-fermented and apricot ciders. The wine selection, meanwhile, is four deep and lovingly chosen.
There's a whole grocery store of food to choose from if you want to eat at the bar—including a deli case chefed by Ya Hala's Mirna Attar—but you can also just shuffle through the aisles with a beer in hand, mumbling obscenities at the cheese.
"We wouldn't do it at Barbur," says the bartender about the roaming policy. "That place gets too crazy. But out here it's just ladies wandering around with a wine glass looking for expensive chocolate." The only other two people at the bar on a recent weekday, however, were a polite, smartly dressed young couple very interested in the wine. The gentleman sniffed gently at his Terrapin Cellars pinot noir, swirled, sipped and pronounced it entirely to his liking.
Willamette Week