There are a lot of outsiders (and insiders) at the St. Johns Beer Porch and Food Pod. Part of the local renaissance slowly building on Lombard, the Porch and Pod is a post-apocalyptic scene, with rusted school bus and taps serving multiple beers, covered by a tent built over a wood floor salvaged from a semi-trailer.
A mélange of mismatched tables, chairs and booths hang together like cousins at a reunion. They all get along well together. People talk, laugh, eat, drink, dance, watch movies and listen to live music. Food carts surround the bus like prairie schooners in a wagon train encampment.
A mélange of mismatched tables, chairs and booths hang together like cousins at a reunion.
“We’ve become a destination in the last year,” Jackie the Beer Porch manager says. Jackie has a shaved head, thick beard and even thicker Scottish brogue. “This area has really changed. Lombard used to be nothing. When we first started there was just the bus and one food cart. We were the first pod to serve beer in Portland.”
The ten or so food carts now here are all-over-the-map good. A favorite is Che Café (Livin’ the Dream their sign says) in a red van fronted by a faded, cracked-wood mural. Almost everything they serve is made in the van. In short, it’s classic Portland.
BUS 75: HIDDEN PORTLAND 