"21-year-old coffee company Portland Roasting is getting bigger in February, as it prepares to open a flagship cafe on the corner of SE Oak and Sandy, just a few seconds away from its Southeast headquarters. The company has been around since 1996, and has been more focused on selling sustainably-sourced coffee from farmers on the retail side — this will be the company’s first stand-alone coffee shop, in addition to the outlets at Portland Airport, and the smaller cafe that’s part of the main roastery. The bigger new space at 815 SE Oak will allow the coffee company to get more playful than before, says director of retail operations Eva Attia. “We’re kind of using it as an experimental test kitchen to try different ideas about and get creative with different concepts.” The offerings will center around espresso, but Portland Roasting will also get into sodas, and some coffee-based cocktails (and it’ll be open into the mid-evening for optimum coffee/booze consumption) — in short, Attia says it will be fairly broad-ranging. “Good for the coffee enthusiasts as well as somebody who might not be quite as familiar with your traditional coffee drinks.” On the food side, the flagship will go beyond the standard coffee shop pastries and muffins — breakfast should be offered, and Attia notes that the company is planning to get more heavily into food prep on site as time goes on. Oh, and it’s also a shiny space complete with Modbar and some nifty wood countertops: take a look. The new cafe is planning its grand opening for February 9." - Tim Forster
