The Eastside Industrial District, once clamoring with production and warehousing, is Portland’s new nerve center for food innovation and nightlife. At the far west end, bumping up against the Willamette and nestled under freeway bypasses, are train tracks and food markets, microbreweries, makers markets, and popup parties. Mosey a bit east and you’ll find some of Portland’s best bars, restaurants, and shops. In the middle of the action lies the Redd on Salmon Street (the Redd), a two-block campus that links the neighborhood’s industrial past with its innovation-fueled future. 

Redd Reveal! Grand Opening Celebration is March 2

The Redd is the newest project of Ecotrust, the Portland-based organization that injected a triple-bottom-line spark into the burgeoning Pearl with the opening of the Natural Capital Center in 2001. With the Redd, Ecotrust is creating a food hub 2.0, connecting an incubator and last-mile distribution warehouse for emerging food producers (Redd West), with a stunningly renovated 1918 ironworks, now turned Portland’s premier venue for convening over great ideas and even greater parties (Redd East).

This space is coming alive on March 2 for its grand opening event, the Redd Reveal! This community party will feature 20 food and beverage stations from Portland’s most delicious and sustainable purveyors, educational culinary demonstrations, and family-friendly entertainment — all included in a $25 ticket that helps support Ecotrust’s work across the Northwest to build economic opportunity, social equity, and environmental well-being. 

The mission of the Redd is to advance a more equitable, restorative, and delicious food system. Party-goers will be able to taste the progress for themselves at the Redd Reveal! Inventive bites you can’t get anywhere else and one-of-a-kind food collaborations between some of Portland’s best purveyors (think Silver Julep Mobile Bar serving up craft cocktails featuring foraged berries and hyper-local Kombucha and exclusive tamales by Tamale Boy featuring Marion Acres chicken) will feed inspiration all day long. B Corp wines and tasty cider will complement the unique, varied eats. Double Mountain Brews will be served in returnable, reusable bottles from Oregon Beverage Recycling Program.

The new, state-of-the-art community kitchen will take center stage for much of the celebration, putting some of the region’s most innovative chefs in the driver’s seat. 

Po’Shines and Cason’s Meats have not only been serving up delicious food in North Portland for years, they have been using their businesses for a force of good, teaching cooking and butcher skills to youth in the Portland Metropolitan area. Come learn at-home butcher skills while you learn about social enterprises, food as a convening agent, and how you can get involved in advancing good food for good. 

Stacey Givens, farmer, chef, and owner of The Side Yard Farm and Kitchen, and 2015 Chopped Champion, will tickle your senses and your mind in Blind-Tasting Bingo. As the winter vegetable season of squash and root veggies winds to a close and the tender greens of spring peak their heads around the corner, give your palette a test of flavor. This is a fun, interactive, and informative activity for adults and kids alike. As you feast your senses, learn about urban farming, education, and regenerative agricultural practices.

The “Wild and foraged” demo will feature products like Oregon mushrooms, Tillamook wild foraged bay clams, and EFM’s own Canopy & Understory salal berry products - plus tasty tidbits around the intersection of ecosystem management and new food markets.  Then Lola Milholland, CEO of Umi Organic, and Yuri Kawano, are bringing a kid-friendly, hands-on temari sushi building experience. Finally, an oyster demo, led by Maylin Chavez of Olympia Oyster Bar, brings pearls of wisdom around preparing these delicious bivalves and their resilience in facing changes due to climate change.

Don’t miss one of the ongoing tours of the full campus, offered in English and Spanish, so you can tell people you were there when the delicious revolution was just getting underway.

Get tickets! Children 12 and under are free.

Want to get involved? Fill out a volunteer form