Hotel Openings

How Will the Hoxton Hotel Change Old Town?

The 119-room luxury tower is chock-full of millennial makers, rooftop macramé, talks with She Bop, and tattoo workshops. Chinatown may never be the same.

By Ramona DeNies October 30, 2018

Full-service restaurant La Neta commands the ground floor of the Hoxton

Johnny Leach, formerly of Chalino and now working with Submarine Hospitality (Ava Gene's, Tusk) plans to roll out a menu of "delicious, reliable Mexican food," guacamole toast and chilaquiles to shareable plates of trout Veracruz and lamb barbacoa. What gets Leach fired up about the new endeavor? The opportunity to work with specialty ingredients from local purveyors like cheesemaker Don Froylan in Albany, Three Sisters Nixtamal, and Ayers Creek Farm.

Photography by Courtesy the Hoxton

In the bar, agua fresca and cocktails riffing on pop culture

From the Magical Realist (whiskey, Cynar, pink peppercorns) to the Love and Rockets (tequila and tropical fruits), bar director Collin Nicholas plans to match La Neta's Mexican-inspired menu note for note. Nicholas is new to Portland (he hails, most recently, from San Francisco) and is reportedly big on botanicals and infusions; take his plan to rotate cold-pressed agua frescas showcasing flavors like fig leaf and pear, walnut and celery root.

Photography by Courtesy the Hoxton

Look for the check-in desk in the lobby's dark recesses; up front, it's casual seating and a coffee shop.

A communal table is the first thing Hoxton guests will see to the left of the main entrance. To the right, a tucked-away coffee shop will pour Proud Mary coffee. (Since spring 2018, the Aussie shop has provided beans to all Submarine Hospitality ventures.) Eventually, Leach plans to sell grab-and-go migas-style breakfast burritos here, along with Mexican pastries made in-house, alongside La Neta's bread and tortilla program.

Photography by Courtesy the Hoxton

Tope, the Hoxton's rooftop bar, will serve up Mexican street food and 270-degree views.

In a veritable jungalow setting (pottery, fronds, plant displays by Solabee), the Hoxton's ninth-floor bar aims to slow things down. The name is a slangy allusion to speed bumps; on its cocktail program of "punchy drinks," one is called the "sleeping policeman"—another speed bump reference. A food program will focus on tacos served on housemade tortillas, along with soft serve sundaes and a nacho Caesar salad.

Photography by Courtesy the Hoxton

Off of NW 5th, a semi-secret basement bar...

Internally, Hoxton employees refer to this subterranean nightspot as "2 Northwest Fifth." You'll find it by a simple sign; press a buzzer to get in. Below, the food and drink program draws on the hotel's Chinatown location, with Chinese American dishes (think kung pao chicken) and high-technique cocktails based on rice spirits like baiju and soju.

Photography by Courtesy the Hoxton

Sleeping quarters from "Snug" to "Roomy"

Those are the terms the Hoxton is using to prep guests for the spaces they'll get. In a "Snug" room, the safe is under the bed, and the end tables double as a coffee caddy and mini-fridge. (Stock up on Kettle chips and local boozes at the reception desk; kitty-corner from that, in the lobby, are retail shelves of additional local products, from fragrances by Imaginary Authors to tote bags from Bridge and Burn.)

Each room boasts a book collection from a local personality.

In a bid to personalize and localize each room, the Hoxton invited 100+ "Hox Friends"—everyone from Ian Williams of nearby Deadstock Coffee to Pink Martini's Thomas Lauderdale—to stock one room apiece with 10 books from their personal libraries. (For her room at the Hoxton, Portland Monthly Style Editor Eden Dawn chose, among other titles, Nancy Drew and the Secret of the Old Clock and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's We Should All Be Feminists.)

Photography by Courtesy the Hoxton

The Hoxton exterior, at 15 NW 4th and West Burnside

The Hoxton Portland formally opens on November 12, 2018.

Illustrations by Surround Architecture

About two weeks out from the official November 12 opening of the Hoxton Portland—Old Town/Chinatown's first luxury hotel, possibly ever?—the New York-based publicity team for London-based Ennismore International offered Portland Monthly a tour.

I expected the nine-story tower to be a beehive of activity, with staff readying for a Halloween week full of special events, then a soft opening, then the big day. But what I wasn't prepared for was the vibe: adrenalin suffusing the place like a road crew about to put on a rock concert. Everywhere, chic employees took notes during a cocktail master class, tasted wine, and stalked the lobby in personally customized Pensole trainers. (The shoe design school shares the block with the Hoxton.)

I shouldn't have been surprised. Old Town—a corner of downtown where Portland's problems have long concentrated, where crime rates are high and children are scarce—is finally, noticeably, anxiously transitioning to ... something else.

Above street-level establishments like Deadstock Coffee, vintage arcade Ground Control, and Berber rug purveyor Kat & Maouche, airy lofts and creative spaces are replacing low-income housing. Rent is going up, and some resident social services are expanding or even moving out. Take Old Town mainstay Central City Concern, which began reconsidering the primacy of downtown for its services following a poll that showed many of its clients had migrated east. (CCC plans to expand to meet them, with an innovative new facility now under construction on Northeast 112nd.)

In the meantime, the Hoxton moved in—catching Portland by surprise last fall when it purchased the nearly complete Grove Hotel from local entrepreneur Bill Naito, shortly before the Grove was set to open. It's literally the biggest development in Old Town in years, and it speaks to the young hospitality brand's confidence that there's money to be made right here, at the intersection of social and economic tension.

The Hoxton has placed its bet on going big on Brand Portland, filling every corner of the tower with arty local call-outs, from in-house workshops with sex shop She Bop and travel magazine On She Goes to the lush Solabee plant displays that throng ninth-floor rooftop bar Tope.

Will Hoxton's bet pay off? Given recent local hospitality trends, we're guessing yes. Perhaps the bigger question: How exactly will that success shape Old Town’s inevitable transformation?

Hotels, Tourism, Restaurant Openings

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How Will the Hoxton Hotel Change Old Town?

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