Skip to main content
1. Rockabilly Cafe
8537 N Lombard St., 503-384-2076, rockabillycafe.com. 8 am-8 pm Wednesday-Thursday and Sunday. 8 am-9 pm Friday-Saturday.
About a month after opening last winter, Rockabilly added alcohol-soaked shakes to its menu, as if it knew we’d need another painkiller as the year wore on. Right now, you should be drinking the White Ukrainian, and not just because it’s trendy to protest the Russian invasion by boycotting the country’s exports along with its name. The shake’s soothing rum-and-coffee flavor is like slipping into that first light sweater of the season as we transition into fall.
2. TopWire Hop Project
8668 Crosby Road NE, Woodburn, 503-765-1645, topwirehp.com. 11 am-8 pm Thursday and Sunday, 11 am-9 pm Friday-Saturday.
Hop harvest is officially underway, which means you need to head to Crosby Hop Farm soon if you want to take in the view of 18-foot bines. Those emerald curtains are quickly coming down—the cutting, separating and kilning is a fascinating process on its own to watch—and the aeromatic green cones will soon end up in beers all over the Northwest, including those pouring at the farm’s beer garden.
3. The Sunset Room
100 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., kexhotels.com/eat-drink/thesunsetroom. 4-10 pm Friday-Sunday.
The rooftop oasis that once held Kex’s Lady of the Mountain has a new occupant. Renowned bartenders Jeffrey Morgenthaler and Benjamin “Banjo” Amberg opened the Sunset Room in late July after launching the hotel lobby’s watering hole Pacific Standard. The top-floor perch has a menu that’s more whimsical and experimental, which goes well with views of the riot of color that is the neighboring Fair-Haired Dumbbell.
4. Old Pal
3350 SE Morrison St., 503-477-9663, oldpalpdx.com. 4-10 pm Sunday-Monday and Thursday; 4-11 pm Friday-Saturday.
The new Sunnyside neighborhood restaurant Old Pal wants to become your regular drinking buddy. You’ll currently find a lineup of eight cocktails, including its eponymous drink made with rye, Campari, and Dolin Dry vermouth, as well as beer, wine and zero-proof drinks. Pair your beverage with the flavors of late summer, like an heirloom tomato gazpacho.
5. Rally Pizza
8070 E Mill Plain Blvd., Vancouver, Wash., 360-524-9000, rallypizza.com. 3-8 pm Monday-Thursday, noon-8 pm Friday-Sunday.
Rally Pizza serves some of Southwest Washington’s best Neapolitan-style pies, hand-stretched pasta and frozen custard milkshakes, like the piña colada. The use of fresh-squeezed, sweet-tart pineapple juice makes all the difference. The custard floats across the tongue as smoothly as a whipped cloud of meringue, while flavors of the tropics, from coconut cream to molasses rum, slowly dissolve like a sunset.
