Worried that Portland was running out of new Thai restaurants to explore, especially ones with menus focused on a particular region or dish? Worry no longer: Thai Peacock and Khao Moo Dang owner Chookiat “Hamm” Saenguraiporn is opening Guay Tiew in the Pearl District, a counter-service restaurant with a build-your-own bowl model. Like Khao Moo Dang, this spot focuses on a single style of Thai street dining; in this case, pork-laden noodle soups. You choose from a selection of broths and sauces, including the eponymous guay tiew ruea, or boat noodle soup. Each bowl comes loaded with pork in various forms: braised, minced, meatballs, and cracklings. If that’s not enough, you can add more of each for a few dollars apiece. “Portland has proven to be a city of adventurous eaters,” Saenguraiporn tells Portland Monthly. “The response to Khao Moo Dang shows that locals are open to bold, authentic flavors. That gave me the confidence to focus on dishes like guay tiew.” The porcine parade continues with rice bowls, spring rolls, and yum Thai salad.

330 NW 10th Ave

Though her resume includes front and back of house stints at Olympia Provisions, Xico, and Cheese Bar, Madilyn Gibbons has always been a baker at heart. During the early days of the pandemic she got really into making bagels, noting the city’s famous lack of worthwhile options. After selling at farmers markets and then through a residency at Puff Coffee, Gibbons is opening Pipsqueak Bagels with her husband, Cam Gibbons, as a brick-and-mortar in the sleepy Creston-Kenilworth neighborhood just south of Powell. While she keeps some of the recipe a secret, Gibbons notes a few elements that make her baked goods stand out. One is using malted barley syrup as a starter (as opposed to commonly used substitutions like malt powder or honey), which deepens the flavor with subtle sweetness. Another is more about technique: “I do a rope rolling method,” she explains. “You slice a rope off your big hunk of dough and wrap it around your fist, and then you tear it off. It’s just a really old-school way of making bagels.”

Gibbons is starting with a menu of six different bagels, the usual suspects—poppy seed, plain, everything—and the fan favorite salt and rosemary, plus room for rotating bagel specials. Simple garnishes like housemade scallion or smoked salmon cream cheese let that chewy dough shine in all its malted barley syrup glory. The shop has a few seats—with a view of the kitchen and its kettle boiler, Big Bertha—but takeout is the expectation. Grab Puff Coffee and Smith Tea to go with breakfast, Thursdays through Mondays, 7am to 2pm.

3844 SE Gladstone St

Nicholas Jarvis has been slinging his wildly popular smashburgers from a food cart at Oakshire Beer Hall since 2022. This summer, he’s moving the business into a permanent location just next door, at the former Taqueria Los Pepitos Locos space. The restaurant is keeping with the cart’s staples—smashburgers, Impossible smashburgers, and fries—as well as sides like crispy brussels sprouts and chicken nuggets. The brick-and-mortar means Sure Shot can serve its own drinks now, too. They’re focusing on highballs, Jarvis says, which he plans to keg and put on tap for patio sipping. On the opening menu: a citrusy tequila-saffron number and a gin and grapefruit spritz with rice water. Also look out for slushies, like gin and tonics and an orangeaid slushy sans alcohol, which Jarvis describes as “Orange Julius meets Minute Maid.”

Jarvis is holding onto the cart, though he says it will be out of commission while the new restaurant gets up to speed.

5013 NE 42nd Ave

Straightaway Cocktails helped kick off the ready-to-drink cocktail craze when it launched in 2018, making canned and bottled libations with locally distilled spirits. A few years later, Accompani joined the lineup, a series of vermouths and amari like the Campari-esque Crimson Snap and Chartreuse-inspired Flora Green. In 2023, the company partnered with Alaska Airlines to stock planes with its mini-cans. Soon, you won’t have to board a flight before you can knock back an old-fashioned or bee’s knees—Straightaway is opening a cocktail bar just behind security at the airport. With retro-futurist vibes evoking the Golden Age of travel, the 35-seat bar will serve full-size cocktails (unlike the Straightaway tasting room on Hawthorne, which serves only miniature tasters), plus snacks from Italian market Sebastiano’s. The drink menu includes a PDX-exclusive Bloody Mary made with Kachka’s famous horseradish vodka, for those who need a kick for their red-eye.

7000 NE Airport Way

Once home to dancey bar Dig A Pony and its successor, Lollipop Shoppe, the corner of Southeast Grand and Morrison has sat empty since last Thanksgiving. But by summer, Eldorado will open in its stead from the team behind Two Wrongs and Jackie’s. The name is inspired by the first car co-owner Quinn Matthewstearn owned, a 1979 Cadillac Eldorado. He and co-owner Nate “Theo” Theobald—operations and bar manager for nearby Panther Club—envision something of a resurrection of Dig A Pony, with DJs spinning tunes for late-night dance parties. Theobald will oversee drinks, which he describes as “craft at scale.” He’s keeping the menu close to the chest, but promises forced-carbonation highballs and clarified cocktails, all batched for ease of service. He also teases a “s’mores old-fashioned.” A serious wine nerd, Theobald will stock plenty of glass pours as well as some bottles, including fancy bubbles for those looking to throw down. For food, the team tapped Lorenzo de Alicante of Lo’s Burgers for a menu of burgers, fries, chicken nuggets, chicharrones, and fried chicken sandwiches. Details are still in the works, but you can expect Jucy Lucys, a Minnesota-style burger stuffed with cheese—the sandwich equivalent of a chocolate lava cake. Even more ostentatious is a “seafood tower” that subs out the crab legs and shrimp for burgers, fries, and nuggets. And those who lament the closure of Burger Stevens can rejoice: The burger window is making a return, and sharing the same hours as the bar itself—5pm to 1am during the week; till 2am on weekends.

736 SE Grand Ave

It’s hard to say if the The Malarkey will live up to its name…or what doing so might mean. The massive, 250-seat steakhouse from TV chef Brian Malarkey is set to land in the Pearl this summer absolutely stuffed with Portland-themed kitsch. That means a motorcycle on display (which is apparently a nod to My Own Private Idaho), a golden elk above the bar honoring the Thompson Elk statue (which was removed from its plinth during 2020’s protests), and stripper poles in the bathroom (no explanation needed). Also on display: something called “Portlandia chickens.” A 60-person private dining room is billed as a “psychedelic forest.” It’s somewhere around Malarkey’s 30th restaurant, though it’s the Oregon-born restaurateur and Top Chef alum’s second in his home state. The food might as well be an afterthought, considering the venue, but the chef is committed to Pacific Northwest cuisine. Expect locally sourced bivalves, Albacore, salmon, venison, and hemp-fed beef from Malarkey’s own Central Oregon ranch.

555 nw 12th ave