Willamette Week

One of Portand, Oregon’s oldest shopping centers has gone from thriving to ragged. During the busiest shopping week of the year, two reporters spent time inside it to understand the decline and search for signs of hope.

Portland’s most successful restauranteur sold his Little Big Burger chain for $6.1 million to the company who owns Hooters. It was just one of his many ventures. Sure, the guy who created the Portland mini-chain formula can cook, but Camden’s greatest skill might be his lucrative ability to discern what customers want.

From an elderly artist living inside a rock club to a foodie who headbutted a winery employee and insulted California chefs before a brawl, Willamette Week gathered 10 of Portland’s best bar stories for your reading and drinking pleasure.

It’s, like, market forces, man.

Come for the food carts. Stay while the police search for your car.

Synthetic opioids are the U.S.’s fastest-growing cause of overdose deaths. The synthetic that killed 18-year old Aisha Zughbieh-Collins in Portland, Oregon was new to local public health officials, and they didn’t know where she got it. Investigators discovered a chain of custody reaching into the dark web, where vendors sell drugs for bitcoin.

In downtown Portland, across Southwest 5th Avenue from City Hall, stands a tall glass and aluminum tower. Inside this building, the Pacwest Center, is a safe. This safe keeps many secrets, but this story is about the disputed contents of a single envelope. Inside the envelope were the last wishes of a holy man, instructions to be revealed after his death. Many of the holy man’s followers were successful entrepreneurs: One founded Kettle Chips, a Salem-based company whose owners sold it in 2006 for a reported $320 million; others co-founded Golden Temple foods in Eugene, a company famous for its Yogi Tea brand. More than a few of his followers were practicing lawyers. But the holy man trusted one lawyer in particular with the most sensitive matters of money, family and legacy.