What to do in Portland, Oregon if you’re here on business (2025)

As a technology Portland often seems like a lifestyle destination for wayward engineers. Although roughly 10 percent of Portland works in technology, Stumptown’s business scene can sometimes seem hidden away, serving as a convenient “third place” between the FAANG capitals to the north and south. Portland is a wooded place of sometimes astonishing natural beauty, set in the shadow of Mount Hood, Oregon’s tallest mountain, and at the intersection of two rivers.

Much of Portland’s tech industry is housed in home offices and co-working spaces, or under a canopy of trees in the so-called Silicon Forest extending to the west-side suburbs of Beaverton, Hillsborough and Aloha. This is where Nvidia co-founder Jensen Huang went to high school, and it’s also where he planted an engineering position for Nvidia. It is also where much of America’s semiconductor and microchip industry took root, including the wings of Intel and Microsoft.

This low level can make Portland a quiet place to do business. Whatever the occasional national headline, the city remains a mostly relaxed place for food, beer, music, and always dressing like you’re about to go for a walk. It’s also a nerd’s paradise for hackerspaces and tech ephemera. Here’s where to stay and where to go.

Where to stay in Portland

Courtesy of Next Jupiter

Not only are you sitting in a quiet downtown hotel, it’s an entry-level move in Portland that many visiting executives or engineers regret. Portland is the most populous place to live, with dense commercial areas filled with cafes and restaurants. This is also where you’ll find many co-working spaces and meeting resources that make doing business here easier, as well as saunas and cold plunge pools that make it fun.

The heart of downtown Portland hugs the western side of the Willamette River, which bisects the city. But WIRED recommends finding a hotel in the amenity-packed Central East Side across the river from downtown, or in residential areas just outside downtown on the West Side.

East side hotels

Courtesy of Next Jupiter

900 E Burnside Street, (503) 230-9200

An iconic piece of the LoBu neighborhood on Portland’s east side across the river from downtown, Jupiter NEXT is a modern, six-story sculpture of a building with a terrace, a bamboo garden, and meeting rooms that can be reserved for groups large or small. Corporate discounts and packages are available for frequent business travelers, which include complimentary drink tickets at Hey Love, a popular cocktail bar on the ground floor that looks a bit like a tropical Fern Bar from the 1970s.

100 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, (971) 346-2992

Not far from Jupiter NEXT is the only North American location of Icelandic lodge KEX, a 28-room boutique with private rooms and event spaces. For business travelers, KEX gets a good neighbor discount at startup-focused co-working space CENTRL across the street, where you can reserve a meeting space or co-working dock. The Pacific Standard Lounge downstairs serves oysters on the half shell and cocktails from world-famous bartender Jeffrey Morganthaler.

Near Jupiter and KEX: The immediate neighborhood includes music venue Nova, Rontoms bar on the patio, excellent pizza and hoagies at Dimo’s Apizza, and great coffee from Roseline Coffee. Visitors can usually walk in for foie gras and steam burgers (which look like a Simpsons joke and taste like heaven) at Canard, the casual, wine-soaked sister restaurant of the James Beard Award-winning French restaurant Le Pigeon next door. A towering luxury sauna and Knot Springs Cold Plunge Resort, which offers river views from hot or cold water, are located near KEX.

West side hotels

Courtesy of the Guardian

614 SW 11th Avenue, (503) 224-3400

The best tip for the downtown core of Southwest Portland is to stay above Ninth Avenue, in the residential and restaurant-packed West End area. The Sentinel Boutique Hotel is easily accessible from the highway, with corporate meeting spaces and a classic seafood and steakhouse, Jake’s Grill, in the basement, as well as a tasting room for one of the country’s leading wineries, Domaine Serene.

close: One of the most incredible views of the city can be found at Bellpine, a top-floor bar and restaurant at the nearby Ritz-Carlton, where the first-floor dining hall, Flock, serves excellent tacos and a surprisingly well-stocked wine cellar. The nearby Multnomah Whiskey Library offers one of the largest and most famous whiskey cellars in the country.

1150 NW 9th Ave., (503) 220-1339

For longer stays, local executives tell us the preferred location is Marriott’s Residence Inn on the edge of Portland’s Pearl District just north of downtown, within easy reach of light rail to the airport — with kitchenettes for leftovers or snacks, and an on-site gym and pool. This is a place to stay and keep fit while working away from home.

close: Convenient co-working space CENTRL is a 14-minute walk away. Nearby Jamison Square has a dense corner of upscale restaurants and bars. The neighborhood’s most popular food comes from nationally recognized Mexican chef Angel Medina, at the prix-fixe Republica (reservations recommended) and his close cousin Lilia Comedor.

Where to work

Courtesy of Central

329 NE Couch St., plus three other locations

CENTRL is a mid-sized West Coast chain of coworking spaces with four locations in Portland that provides flexible, low-friction arrangements for business travelers. This includes open day passes for $40 per day and private co-op day passes for between $100 and $300 per day. Relatively low-frills meeting rooms can also be rented by the hour.

830 NE Holladay Street

WeWork has come back from the brink these days, and Portland has one of the hippest locations, with flexible day work options and a nice enclosed patio — plus the requisite craft beer taps and table tennis. If your company has a WeWork membership, this is where you’ll be — amid high-rise buildings overlooking Portland’s convention district.

500 SW 116th Street.

This luxury coworking space on the edge of Portland’s western suburbs is an ideally located way station for those doing business in the chip-filled silicon jungle west of Portland. Day passes and meeting rooms are available in a stylish, high-ceiling space suitable for corporate clients, as well as an attached health club.

Where to get coffee

Portland was America’s first bastion of third-wave craft coffee, and some of the world’s best beans come here to roast. Here are the best places to mix up excellent drinks with Wi-Fi and a power outlet.

Photo: Matthew Corvage

321 NE Davis Street And other sites

Roseline is a mid-sized roastery with a few locations around Portland that offers perhaps the best combination of work-friendly spaces and truly excellent coffee — from light, drip-roasted coffee to well-balanced espresso shots.

823 NW 23rd Avenue.

Looking for a coffee shop where you’re likely to find technophiles in Portland? This sophisticated multi-roaster espresso lounge is the place to be, with shots from far-flung roasters available. You’ll need to come early to get a prime table.

1229 SW 10th Avenue.

Located in the museum buildings in downtown Portland, Behind the Museum Café is a cool hangout opened by owner Tomoe Horibuchi with a focus on small Japanese snacks and premium tea and coffee from local company Extracto. Free Wi-Fi is available, and a hidden café often has seating (and outlets).

2181 NW Nicholas Street

Electrica is a brick-walled multi-roaster café that serves premium teas, coffee roasted in Japan or Thailand, fortified espresso drinks, and Mexican-style coffee – all on the edge of an electrical supply store.

Where do you eat?

Photo: Matthew Corvage

803 SE Stark Street

I’ve eaten at a lot of ramen restaurants, from New York to Los Angeles to Tokyo. Few in this country are on Toya’s level, from classic shoyu broth to wild modern inventions like unforgiving ramen carbonara with hand-massaged noodles. The menu is equally marked in sake and shochu balls.

3808 N Williams Ave.

Akapong “Earl” Ninsom has founded several Thai restaurants in Portland that rank among the best in the country, including the Beard Award-winning Royal Thai restaurant Langban. Nothing is as special as EEM – a combination of tiki cocktails, slow-smoked Texas barbecue, and Thai curry that has to be tasted to be believed. You’ll order the white curry with the burnt ends of the brisket. You will talk about it with your friends for years.

960 SE 11th Street.

There’s no restaurant quite like Kachka, a vodka-and-dumpling-filled hall dedicated to the food of the former Soviet world. Order Russki Zakoski, an endless parade of Slavic dishes including Kachka’s signature bright pink “herring under a fur coat” salad. Then order the dumplings, from delicious pelmeni to sour cherry vareniki, sumptuous caviar with butter and blini, and flutes of vodka infused and distilled by the restaurant. Prefer seafood? Try the newly opened Fabrika branch of Kachka at 2117 NE Oregon St.