Downtown Portland

If you’re on a budget or looking for downtown alfresco dining, join the bus commuters, cyclists, and pedestrians on the go who eat at street food carts. Food carts are scattered all over the city, purveying all sorts of street food (burritos, bento, stir-fry, barbecue, Indian, Korean, Lebanese, and so on), but the greatest number is downtown, where there are over 60 carts.

For the greatest concentration, go to SW Alder Street at 9th and 10th Avenues, and in the heart of the bus mall around SW 5th Avenue and Stark Street. There’s even a website devoted to Portland food carts [1].

There is a large food court on the lower level of Pioneer Place Shopping Center, most directly reached by the escalators at SW Salmon Street and 5th Avenue.

Another option for inexpensive eats are happy hour menus—nearly every bar and many restaurants offer reduced-price food and drink late in the afternoon and early evening, typically 4–6 p.m. Sometimes this can be just a dollar off drinks, but often there’s a special happy hour menu that offers considerable discounts. A number of websites chart Happy Hour deals across the city; check out http://portlandhappyhour.com [2] and www.barflymag.com/happy-hour [3] to find out where the deals are.