Oregon is the Pumpkin Spice Champion

Another week in Portland has gone by with restaurant openings and closings. The worst blow may have been the loss of the long standing soul food restaurant Dubs St. Johns, which closed over the weekend. Meanwhile, northwest Portland got a slew of openings, including the excellent Kashmiri restaurant Bhuna, while Hawthorne Boulevard got its own Straight from New York Pizza, just a short distance from the Belmont location.
Here’s the other news from a relatively sleepy week in the restaurant world:

Fresh Chef, Fresh Fish — The bright and airy Hawaiian restaurant Poke Mon has brought on Steven Woerdehoff as its new executive chef after firing the previous one, Colin Yoshimoto. Yoshimoto’s firing had led to a staff walk-out in protest, and a few days closed reportedly to work on “much needed maintenance,” but the store is up and running again now. Woerdehoff previously worked as a chef at a number of Portland restaurants including the venerable Produce Row Cafe. [Willamette Week]

Silver Medal Winners — Wallethub, a financial site that likes to dip its toes in restaurant writing, has declared Portland the second best city to live in for vegetarians and vegans. It actually uses some pretty complex metrics to get results, so we’re inclined to believe it, even if it gave New York City the gold medal over us. [Wallethub]

Gold Medal Winners — Apparently Oregonians are number one at something, though, and that thing is consuming the iconically autumnal drink of pumpkin spice lattes: Time reports that the Beaver State drinks more “PSLs” than any other state in country. Given our simultaneous love for beer, it’s no surprise that a brewery is hopping on the bandwagon, as 10 Barrel releases its 24-month cellar aged seasonal beer, Jamaican Me Pumpkin. [EPDX]