The James Beard Public Market is The Win That Portland Needed

It turns out the answer was food all along.

The James Beard Public Market in Downtown Portland, Oregon

What Paul Bocuse and Auguste Escoffier are to France, Artusi Pellegrino is to Italy, Patricia Quintana is to Mexico, and Gastón Acurio is to Peru, James Beard is to the United States: the central figure in shaping how we understand and enjoy food and cuisine. And like many of you, James Beard grew up in Portland, often citing Oregon and France as his two greatest inspirations in a career that literally changed the way Americans think about food. Like our culinary greats Naomi Pomeroy and Robert Reynolds, James Beard was one of us too.

To put that another way: America’s culinary revolution started in Oregon. A city in Europe or Latin America might name an airport after a figure of such magnitude, but in Portland, there isn’t even a plaque. And honestly, Oregon has done a better job telling the James Beard story at the state level than Portland, which has been hemming and hawing about this project for years—while championing a bunch of projects that made far less sense. (Like a $15 million skate park when we already have one).

But that is about to change. Finally.

With yesterday's announcement that the long-anticipated James Beard Public Market will open in Downtown Portland as soon as 2025, Portland is finally stepping up to claim an important piece of its own history and its place in America's culinary landscape, and this is a really big deal, a milestone in the city’s history, a jewel in the crown.

For Downtown Portland, I can’t think of a project in recent memory that makes more sense. At its core, Portland, Oregon is a food city—a place that lives and breathes food and drink, contributing far more to the food and beverage landscape and conversation than any other city its size in America—and considerably more than some of the big ones too.

But most importantly, this marks the city finally stepping up to invest in its culinary scene—the very thing Portland is most known for, even though the city, aside from a few bureaus, has honestly treated like a bastard child. With the announcement of the James Beard Public Market moving into a ground-floor space just one block from Pioneer Courthouse Square, bringing as many as 40 small food businesses along with it, fate has dictated what should have been true all along—Downtown Portland’s comeback will be fueled by the city’s greatest asset: its world-class culinary community. With such an interesting fabric of historic (and vacant) buildings in the neighborhood, I predict that this market will anchor what will become one of the country’s most significant culinary districts—and I can’t wait.

Like many in the food world and in Portland, I have followed this project for years—sometimes as a fan, once or twice as a donor, a couple of times as a critic, but always as someone who really wanted to see this project happen in the right way—even though it was easy to get frustrated that the market took more than two decades to find a home.

But that doesn’t matter anymore, and all of the doubters need to keep their mouths shut and their pocketbooks open.

In Portland, the only news that matters is this: The James Beard Public Market is going to happen at the exact right time for the city and has the potential to reach a success of a magnitude that will surprise even its greatest supporters—who have patiently waited for this moment for more than 20 years. Good on them.

To Portland’s chorus of over-thinkers, who find a thousand reasons to say no to just about everything that could move the city forward instead of actually taking a risk, I believe your time has passed. Portland is a city that demands fresh ideas and approaches that reflect the city we are in 2024—not the one you moved to in 1994.

And as it turns out, this time around, the best idea has been simmering on the back burner for 25 years. The market, I believe, is one of a handful of projects that will transform Portland into its best version yet in the next decade. From the Albina Vision Trust, to the Made in Old Town project, to the long-overdue Eastside music venue owned by locals Andrew Colas and Jonathan Malsin, to the new TIF districts in Downtown Portland and OMSI, to the food hall in the Ritz Carlton, and all the other projects of every scale that are underway. The scale of all these projects will test the definition of what many believe Portland is or isn’t—and that’s a good thing. Cities grow and change. That’s what makes them interesting. And right now, there is a new generation of Portlanders that are more diverse, financially savvy, and globally minded than ever before.

For nearly two decades, longtime restaurateur and politico Ron Paul was the face and champion of the James Beard Public Market, and even though Ron didn’t live to see it come to fruition, he will be remembered as its godfather.

Ron took me to lunch one day in the early teens, and as he and I were talking about the future of Portland—as we often would—he shared his staunch opinion that we needed to bury I-5 and build the East side’s equivalent of Waterfront Park. “If your ideas don’t shape the future of the city 50 or 100 years from now, then you’re not thinking big enough,” Ron said, in between slurps of ramen. Ron died in 2015, and here we are today, celebrating the market that will open ten years after his passing—one that would not have happened and would not have the rights to the James Beard name without his work. (The naming rights, by the way, are priceless). Ron, it turns out, was thinking bigger than everyone else—the market just needed the right time, which is now.

And no mention of the James Beard Public Market can be made without giving a huge shout-out to Jessica Elkan, the market’s new CEO, who has infused this project with the energy of a political campaign over the last year and persuaded the city to believe in the market when Portland needed something to believe in. It has been a joy to watch Jessica work her way through Portland with a drive and tenacity that’s effective, contagious, and rare. The right leaders always emerge at the right time.

What a win for Portland, Oregon.