Five Weirdly Specific Restaurants I Wish Existed
What's on your list?
Greetings from Portland, Oregon, the city that shuts down in the face of three inches of snow. With nothing to do but stare out the window at the sleet and ice and patchy, not-beautiful snow all week, I asked myself this important question:
Can I manifest new restaurants by drawing them?
I live in a bustling urban neighborhood that’s absolutely packed with restaurants, cafes, food trucks, and shops of all kinds. I just checked: the nearest one, a vegan juice and grain bowl cafe, is 371 feet away. Within about 500 feet are a Thai restaurant and a Mexican place. I can’t complain about the availability of good food within an easy walk.
And yet! I have very specific unmet restaurant needs. I’ve been working for some time on this list of restaurants that I wish existed, but do not. Some can be found elsewhere, just not here. Some do not, to my knowledge, exist anywhere, but I nonetheless put the ideas out there for anyone to pick up and run with, provided you open the restaurant within a ten-block radius of my house.
Soup Bar
Lots of places have soup bars, but my neighborhood does not, and I’d like that to change. Here’s my vision: A dozen soups, rotating frequently, catering to the varied dietary demands of Portlanders. Don’t allow mission creep in the form of salads, sandwiches, cookies, and the like. I’ll allow a maximum of two (2) bread/cracker/crouton options and a modest beverage selection, but that’s it. A few cold soups in the summer, obviously, and they have my permission to just close up shop in August and take a vacation.
Casserole-A-Rama
Casseroles are underrepresented in restaurant cuisine generally. It’s a dish we eat at home, not something we’d necessarily go to a destination for. But think about it: a casserole is generally a complete meal. You got your protein, your grains, your vegetables. It’s a good hefty lunch or dinner option. And the variety! Anything that can be baked in a casserole pan and cut into squares (or scoops, I’ll allow a scoop) counts, from lasagna to tamale pie to green bean casserole with the fried onions on top. I’d consider spanakopita a casserole, because it fits the size and shape criteria.
I’m thinking of this (and the soup bar) as primarily a take-out place, maybe with a few seats for dining in. You could get a slice, a half pan, or a full pan. While I am concerned about mission creep with the casserole place too, I would allow a side salad or two. (Obviously, the seven-layer salad should be on regular rotation, as it is both a salad and a casserole.)
Party Platters for Dinner
This is a version of the now-famous “girl dinner” that took over social media last summer. We all know that a party platter (or even the leftovers sitting around after the party’s over) makes an excellent dinner. And yes, I know that every supermarket has a veggie tray, or even a slightly fancier charcuterie type of tray, all packed up and ready to go, not to mention the fact that they carry the various ingredients, just sitting there waiting for you to buy, unwrap, chop, etc.
But I’m talking here about an assortment of party platters specifically designed to be your dinner, sold in, let’s say, both a two-person and a family-sized portion. Probably the way to make this work is to have it be a modular, build-your-own thing, where you decide what you want in terms of your meats, your cheeses, your veggies, your fried or baked goods, and so on, and someone packs it up for you. I would be okay with this place also being a wine bar/hangout sort of establishment, as long as I could just drop in, grab a party platter to go, and head home to eat it in solitary bliss in front of the TV, no party required.
McMenamins for Breakfast
This is very specific to Portland, but perhaps you have a similar problem where you live: the old-school diners are mostly gone from my neighborhood. In their place we have a variety of too-fancy, too-popular, or too-specific breakfast options. You either need a reservation, or you have to wait in line for a table, or you have to want one very specific thing, like bagels or doughnuts or chicken and waffles.
But with real estate prices what they are, who can afford to open a basic eggs-and-bacon breakfast place?
I’ll tell you who can. McMenamins. These people run pubs all over Portland. There are four in my neighborhood alone. And what’s going on in there at breakfast time? Nothing much, except for maybe some cleaning and prep.
McMenamins could open just one of their four locations in my neighborhood for the kind of basic American breakfast the kitchen is already set up for. Most of their locations have loads of seating, inside and out. There would never be a line. They wouldn’t have to get fancy, no one expects fancy from a McMenamins. Just put on some coffee and start making eggs and frying potatoes and flipping pancakes.
McMenamins, if you’re reading this: Portlanders deserve to be able to roll out of bed at any morning-ish hour and stumble down the street, perhaps still in their pajamas, for an affordable and convivial breakfast with their neighbors.
Your community needs you. It’s time to step up.
I don’t actually have a fifth restaurant idea
If you’ve read this far, it’s your turn! Tell me about the one weirdly specific restaurant you need in your neighborhood. Bonus points for originality—I would love to hear about restaurant ideas that don’t actually exist anywhere, or that are, in some way, highly imaginative and impractical!
I’ll read your comments, pick a winner, and draw a goofy little postcard illustrating your idea & mail it to you. Just click this orange box to post your idea:
For paid subscribers: a painting made to order
For the price of a couple of pencils, paid subscribers get weekly art lessons that cover anything and everything you can do in a sketchbook (with access to the growing archive), plus something new: I’ll do a custom painting, inspired by your idea or photo, use it for an art lesson, and then mail you the finished product. Here’s what’s going out in a few minutes: a demo of Melissa’s request for a painting of cocktails al fresco.
You can get in on this deal right away by signing up at the Founding/Patron of the Arts level, but from time to time I’ll offer it up as a random giveaway chosen from all paid subscribers. Take a look at your options here:
The bit at the end
Come find me on Instagram, or see paintings for sale- Right here
Order signed copies of some of my books from my husband’s bookstore, or order my books and many books I love at Bookshop.org
Take one of my online writing or art classes here
This is very particular to where I live, Birmingham, Ala., where the best of the dozens of barbecue restaurants is called Saw's. There are now a few locations of Saw's, but the original is in my neighborhood. For years, the space next to it was under-used/vacant, and my non-BBQ-eating partner wanted to rent the space and start a restaurant called Slaws. She was fiercely adamant that Slaws would sell only slaws: cabbage slaws of all kinds, fennel slaws, broccoli slaws, and so on. There would be plenty of toppings — nuts, soybeans, avocado, chickpeas, sunflowers seeds, etc. — but no animal proteins. And no other dish types. No soups, no sandwiches, no salads (unless they were slaws). Just slaws at Slaws.
I’d pay anything to eat at “Childhood Supper” featuring a buffet of the ordinary things we used to have and complain about. Mine would feature beans & fishcakes, beans & hotdogs, American chop suey, and hamburg casserole ❤️