Portland Anniversary, Day 6: Ground Kontrol, Billy Galaxy, Powell’s, Pine Street Market, Vault, Pink Rabbit, Sizzle Pie

This morning, we ran out of our “list” of brunch places to visit… so we went with an easy option of just grabbing something from the hotel restaurant. After that, we decided to split up for the morning. Liz went to visit a few yarn shops while I ambled around downtown on my own.

First up for me: Ground Kontrol, a local arcade.

Ah, there you are old friend: Teminator 2, Judgment Day. So weird to see you outside of a 7-11.

Another old favorite and friend: Robotron: 2084.

Not too shabby, not too rusty.

It’s a damn high school reunion here: Black Knight 2000.

For all the pinball references, check out the pinball tag.

A view of the downstairs.

Cool stairs, leading between floors.

The arcade was nice, and everything was about a quarter. A few of the pinball machines were 50 cents, and the newer ones were 75 or a dollar.

At first, there were just a few older guys like me wandering around. Over the course of an hour, I started to see young dads with their very young sons and daughters wandering around – hitting the classic arcade games.

The longer I stayed, the more I saw younger kids wandering around. I guess this place was only nostalgia for some (just us older folks, who could buy beer and play our arcade games at the same time).

One thing I didn’t get to experience: the Killer Queen game near the entrance. There weren’t enough other people around, and I felt weird trying to gather up a group to play. So I just admired the machine and kept on walking.

Wandering back towards the hotel, I spotted some lunchboxes in the window of Billy Galaxy.

Ah, Carebears.

Classic Star Wars figures.

I had this set as a kid.

An assembly of GI Joe figures, just hanging out.

This is hard to see, but I was wowed by the fact that there were some Crystar figures. I vaguely remembered this from my childhood, but feel like I got maybe one figure and two or three comics. And that’s all. I feel like I heard the start of a good story, and nothing after the second page.

Outside, I realized there was a Krull poster by the front door. This definitely was my kind of store.

A short hop away: Powell’s.

Was checking out the poetry section, and chanced across a collection by Kay Ryan.

I saw a few pages were dog-eared, and one page had Ryan’s name in ink. I half-wondered if this was the author, signing her own book… but a quick Google search showed me her autograph looked nothing like this. Bummer.

I ended up finding a collection of short stories by Charles Johnson. I loved Middle Passage and in particular was taken with his short stories from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Menagerie in particular). So I was excited to find another collection of his short stories.

Liz picked me up outside the hotel, and we decided to walk a bit together to Pine Street Market – a food hall a few blocks away.

When we were hanging out with Amanda and Michael a few days ago, this place made our list as a recommended stop.

In particular, we wanted to try out Marukin Ramen, which has 9 locations in Japan and only one in the States (here in Portland).

Fast forward a bit into the evening. We lingered at the hotel a while after lunch, and decided around 7:00 PM that we wanted to head out again for a few drinks.

It was our last night in Portland, and though we were both tired from the week… we weren’t quite ready to be done.

We didn’t want a super involved night out, but wanted something. And so we found a few bars nearby to hit up.

First: Vault. Pretty relaxed and chill.

We got a table in the corner of the space, on a kind of circular, elevated platform that had some curtains around it.

About a block away, we then went to Pink Rabbit. Because of course this was a bar we needed to visit.

The lighting was very pink and very dark.

A view of the bar, on our way out.

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped off at Sizzle Pie. And I have to tell you, this was a fantastic bit of pizza we had here.

We got a lot of different slices, but hands down our favorite was The Gold Ring.

We brought this back to our hotel room, and had pizza while watching Netflix. After a long day and a few cocktails, this was a perfect way to ease into our last night in Portland.

Related:
Portland Anniversary, Day 1: Relocation
Portland Anniversary, Day 2: Comics, Portland Art Museum, Dinner at Le Pigeon
Portland Anniversary, Day 3: Japanese Garden, Pittock Mansion, Beer with Michael and Amanda, Living Room Theater
Portland Anniversary, Day 4: Schoolhouse Electric, Multnomah Falls, Dinner at A Cena
Portland Anniversary, Day 5: Old Portland Hardware and Architectural, Aurora Mills Architectural Salvage, WillaKenzie Winery, Erath Winery, Dinner at Nick’s Italian Cafe

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