Virginia Cafe

Restored in 1979 by the current owners, Peter Goforth and Bob Rice, the Virginia Cafe sat on Park Avenue pretty much with the same style and spirit it had back in 1922. In January of 2007, news broke that the entire block had been sold, displacing all the tenants and in its place would rise a 35 story tower. It appeared to be the end of the story for the Virginia Cafe, which had run continuously in downtown Portland since 1914. Low and behold, a new site was found and construction began in the former home of the Willamette Week offices on September 17th, 2007. Many of the old fixtures and booths made the journey to the new location, with one booth finding a home at the Oregon Historical Society. February 25th, 2008 started like every other day had on Park Avenue, with one exception, it was moving day for the Virginia Cafe. With our home on Park Avenue still open for business for one last day, work was escalating to a fever pitch to get the new place open on 10th Avenue. The anticipation for the move was mounting. At 4:33pm family, friends and long time patrons of the Virginia Cafe picked up their bar stools and began the bar stool crawl to 10th Avenue led by The Last Regiment of Syncopated Drummers to our new home at 820 SW 10th Avenue. That was indeed a sight to see. We are now going into our 95th year serving Portland and all of us at Virginia Cafe want to thank you for your continued patronage after all these years. Cheers!