Between the smell of freshly baked cupcakes from Ida’s and the salty bacon scent from Crazy Delicious, there aren’t too many streets in Bend that will tempt your palate or your wallet more than Galveston Avenue.
Last Friday was no exception, as the street hosted the first Galveston Street Project, an event that business owners hope will be a monthly celebration of the evolution of the street into one of Bend’s hippest locales.
Hoots and hollers could be heard as the Peddle Pub struggled up the slight hill, followed by a crew of bikers who waved jovially as they rode past the patio of 10 Barrel.Greg Botsford’s tunes poured onto the street from the open door of Primal Cuts and, drinks in hand, folks gathered around the patio at Longboard Louie’s talking about the Bend summer staples—hiking, biking, paddling, their dogs and their breweries.
This is the new face of Galveston Avenue, but it hasn’t always been this way.
Before there was ever a flaming chicken spiked into the center of the roundabout at the end of Galveston Avenue, the street was more of a traffic thoroughfare than a haven for good food, good beer and Bend culture.
But things have changed.
Now Galveston is the city’s hub for street food. Two of the town’s favorite new watering holes—Brother Jon’s and 10 Barrel anchor the corner of 12th Street and Galveston, generating a constant stream of foot traffic. And a whole host of rad other businesses have cropped up.
Baked. Ida’s Cupcake Café. Gossamer’s. Primal Cuts. The list goes on.
Chicken coops and gardens mark the arrival of a younger and more local-food oriented crowd than in the recent past. And a testament to the hipness of the area, the Galveston 7-11 is the number one distributor of Pabst Blue Ribbon in the state of Oregon, ranked seventh nationwide.
It was probably only a matter of time before businesses banded together to cash in on the area’s growing cultural cache.
Enter the Galveston Street Project, a grassroots marketing effort meets street party that is slated every last Friday of the month. Think of it as an art walk without all the tourists.
Businesses from the river up to the flaming chicken will stay open late every last Friday of the month through the summer to offer beer and wine tastings, special art exhibits, food specials and all sorts of other mini-events.
The project is the brainchild of Bryan Tremayne, owner of Primal Cuts, which celebrated its one-year anniversary on June 21.
“I wanted to do a party for myself for my one-year anniversary,” said Tremayne. “I walked up and down the street and tried to catch everyone when they were open. As I was doing that, everyone got really excited and started coming up with their own ideas.”
Their offerings included music on the patio of Longboard Louie’s, art and wine at Studio Hair, a bicycle-powered shaved-ice station in front of Ida’s Cupcakes, and free (what else?) PBRs and hotdogs outside Aspect Board Shop.
Spork cooked up a delicious Primal Cuts menu including an encore appearance of the creative hot dog that they served up for the Bite of Bend, and a rockin’ (as Tremayne described it) pastrami sandwich.
Ida Gurule, owner of Ida’s Cupcake Café, stood outside her business all evening helping run their man-powered icy machine.
“It took beer to make people know where Galveston is,” Gurule quipped. “It should have taken cupcakes.”
Tremayne explained that part of the reason for the event was that people are missing out on the great businesses that are open during the day, but not usually at night.
“A lot of people just come over here at night because of Brother Jon’s, 10 Barrel and Parrilla,” said Tremayne. “I wanted to jump on that and let them see what they’re missing down here—all the other stuff that is going on.”
Stay tuned to the Source for future
Galveston Street Project event details.
What: Galveston Street Project
When: Last Fridays of the month through summer
Where: Galveston from the river to Century Drive
