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Back when St. Johns was still an independent small town (and before Interstate 5’s construction destroyed part of North Portland), streetcars brought Portlanders to and from the peninsular outpost. Stops like Leavitt Station, Signal Station and Peninsula Station were crucial to that circuit. Over the ensuing century, Leavitt Station has been a central part of St. Johns’ commercial core, and last fall, Althea Grey Potter brought destination dining to the former streetcar station. Bar Nouveau, an upscale French-inspired restaurant and cocktail lounge, opened in October after several months as a pop-up in the former Gracie’s Apizza space just down the street.
A longtime resident of nearby Portsmouth, Grey Potter is one among thousands of Portlanders under St. Johns’ spell, and was happy to act as WW’s guide to the neighborhood.
1. Bistro Stop
Grey Potter’s St. Johns tour begins at her own Bar Nouveau (7425 N Leavitt Ave., 503-849-3351, nouveaufoodandwine.com). It’s a Wednesday and the restaurant is closed, but she has some prep to do in advance of Thursday’s opening. Grey Potter has just come from the Shemanski Park Farmers Market to drop off a haul of fresh produce—snap peas, strawberries and the season’s first asparagus; she also sources from farms on Sauvie Island. The menu has shifted (her mission today is to prepare duck confit with a rhubarb gastrique), but patrons in the know can still order a romance novel accompanied with bonbons from Bees & Beans for dessert. French cuisine holds a special place in Grey Potter’s heart due to a year her family lived in France when she was a child and fond memories of watching cooking shows on PBS.
Grey Potter says she loves downtown St. Johns in part because numerous other national cuisines are available barely a block from Bar Nouveau’s doorstep. She gives a shout-out to established spots like Thai Cottage and the taqueria inside Tienda Santa Cruz as well as relative newcomers like Mikasa Sushi & Ramen and Kabuki Sushi & Grill.
While Bar Nouveau feels like a novel development for the neighborhood (as its name implies), Grey Potter says she was recently told its opening actually marks the return of French cuisine to St. Johns.
“My refrigeration repair company—Arctic Refrigeration; they’re awesome—is in this neighborhood, and my repair guy told me that, like, 20 years ago there was a husband-and-wife-owned French bistro down the street,” she says. “Of course, this was pre-when you could easily find out things like this on the internet, so I’ll probably never know, but really I’m just bringing a French bistro back to St. Johns.”
2. Time Travel
Once she’s finished with the morning’s errands, Grey Potter visits Hound & Hare Vintage (7322 N Leavitt Ave., 971-279-6764, instagram.com/houndandharevintage), which opened in 2013.
“There are a lot of vintage stores in Portland, but this is incredibly well-curated by someone who really knows a lot about vintage,” she says. “Even when I’m in a hurry, I’m cruising this rack to see what’s on it. I’m into speed-shopping, apparently.”
Stephanie Calvert, Hound & Hare’s owner, greets Grey Potter in a small storefront packed with vintage clothes, accessories and home goods. Hound & Hare has some remarkable pieces, including reasonably priced trendy items like beaded purses hovering above $50. Calvert says she knows how to beat online resellers while extending deals to truly appreciative customers like Grey Potter. Calvert’s collection has pieces dating back to the early 19th century, but the majority of Hound & Hare’s wares are mid-to-late 20th century, with Y2K-era pieces begrudgingly added due to demand.
“I don’t like alienating St. Johns people, who generally are not rich people. The new move-ins are and the tourists are,” Calvert says. “Everyone’s dipping their toes into my business, but I’d rather have that than have it go in the trash. Like, Y2K is trash, but I’m so glad people want it so it has one more wear before the trash. It was the beginning of the end of quality garments.” She’s been eyeing a larger storefront (“I am bursting at the seams”) but is determined to stay in St. Johns if she can. “My heart is in St. Johns, and I will do everything I can to stay here.”
Grey Potter briefly considers a 1980s-era cream felt hat with gold details and a gold lamé bow, priced at $40, but ultimately decides against it. She says she’s generally a big fan of vintage shopping, giving a shout-out to Vinyl Resting Place (a favorite spot of hers that was closed on the day of our walk).
“Especially if I don’t have something in mind, it’s a great place to just sort through and just kind of see what pops out,” she says of both stores.
3. Touching Grass
Leaving Hound & Hare, Grey Potter navigates side streets artfully enough to make the descent into Cathedral Park (N Edison Street and Pittsburg Avenue, portland.gov/parks/cathedral-park) beneath the St. Johns Bridge easier on the knees. Grey Potter’s previous business, Oui! Wine Bar + Restaurant in Southeast Portland, closed during the pandemic. Amid that era’s yawning period of uncertainty, she faced an identity crisis that she worked through on frequent walks in Cathedral Park. Taking in the park’s abundant naturescapes—tree groves, manicured flower beds of irises, an amphitheater with a stage, and a pier granting river access—proved therapeutic, especially while recovering from carpal tunnel surgery, she says.
“I feel almost a spiritual connection to Cathedral Park, which is ironic because of the cathedral aspect and I’m not an especially religious person,” she says. “I felt soothed by the [St. Johns Bridge’s] soaring architecture and just going to be by the water.”
On this stretch of the walk, Grey Potter gets reflective on the past and future of St. Johns and her role in it.
“I wondered if people were going to embrace [Bar Nouveau] or are people going to think this is a marker of gentrification and not like it,” she says. “But I have to say, the neighborhood and the other local business owners have been really kind and super welcoming.”
4. The Happiest Hour
While Cathedral Park’s sprawling acreage, public performance stage and waterfront access offer more than enough room for Grey Potter and her neighbors to get their step count up, the ascent back up to Lombard pumps up the cardio. Atop the hillside are a few longtime neighborhood dive bars, including Blue Bird Tavern and the Wishing Well (which suffered a debilitating fire in February). Near North Lombard Street’s curve through downtown St. Johns is Slim’s Restaurant and Lounge (8635 N Lombard St., 503-286-3854, facebook.com/slims-pdx), which has been open since 1911, before St. Johns joined Portland’s city bounds.
“Slim’s encompasses all those dive bar needs, but I am also a history nerd,” she says. “If these walls could talk, I can only imagine the stories they would tell.”
She doesn’t go out as often as she did before she opened Bar Nouveau, but Grey Potter says she still loves a dive bar and tries to visit Slim’s two or three times a month. Her go-to order is a beer (today it’s Ecliptic’s Starburst IPA; she’s a fan of local IPAs in general) with a basic cheeseburger. She loves the simplicity of well-crafted comfort food but commends Slim’s for offering more upscale dishes like tuna poké.
“You see people from all walks of life here,” Grey Potter says. “I think it’s beautiful that you still get your townie regulars who have been coming here for 60 years, but it also feels welcoming to newcomers. One time I was here there was someone in full Batman cosplay just hanging out, and I was like, ‘I love this bar.’ It’s a quintessentially Portland-y place and a quintessential St. Johns place.”
EAT: Bar Nouveau, 7425 N Leavitt Ave., 503-849-3351, nouveaufoodandwine.com, 5–10 pm Thursday–Sunday.
