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Five Years On, Oregon Still Struggles to Collect Some Pandemic-Era Fines
Most people agree that the restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic were a drag. Wearing facial coverings, social distancing and not hanging indoors with others were disruptive necessities in curbing the spread of the virus, which ultimately killed about 1.2 million Americans. Like elsewhere in the state, some Central Oregon businesses were slow in adopting then-Gov.…
Rosemary & Fox to Open Mid-March
The Jackalope Grill in downtown Bend is closing. Its last night will be Feb. 28. A social media post announced the restaurant has been sold. After a remodel, a new restaurant called Rosemary & Fox will open with owners Chef Josh Podwils and his wife, Kate. The name comes from Chef Josh’s favorite herb, rosemary,…
Bacon Lovers Have a New Haven
A new breakfast spot prominently featuring bacon has opened near downtown Redmond. bacon Bar N Brunch celebrated its grand opening on Feb. 5. The restaurant, with indoor and outdoor seating, features standard breakfast items like eggs, pancakes, French toast, oatmeal and avocado toast but also has thick-cut applewood smoked bacon, candied bacon, bacon omelettes, BLT…
‘The Soul of the Land’
A new exhibit at the Bowman Museum’s Belknap Exhibit Center is entitled “Soul of the Land: Quilts by June Jaeger.” Jaeger was born in Prineville and has lived there off and on at various points of her life. She feels a deep connection to the small town. “There is just a lot of good people…
Pizza Week Preview
Pizza. Almost everybody likes it. Not everybody, though. My wife doesn’t. I wish I would have known that before we got married. You hear about people finding out after the wedding some deep dark secret, but this must be the worst kind. I could handle discovering previous marriages, undisclosed children, or belonging to a cult, but you don’t like pizza? What…
Bend Beer (and Cider) Scene Gets a Collective Shakeup
To paraphrase the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, “The only thing constant in life is change.” Some 2,500 years later, his musings describe the state of beer here in Bend. It’s a city rich in craft brewing culture where Deschutes Brewery is one of the nation’s oldest and largest breweries, but beyond that monolith, everything is in…
Free Will Astrology, Week of Feb. 19
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Over the last 4,000 years, a host of things have been used as money in addition to precious metals and paper currency. Among them have been cows, seashells, cheese, tobacco, velvet, tulips, elephant tusks, and huge stone wheels. I hope this poetic fact will inspire your imagination about financial matters. In…
Driven to Civil Disobedience: Motorcyclist Arrested at Downtown Bend Protest Tells His Side of the Story
“When I saw what happened to Alex Pretti… I knew that could’ve been me,” said Kurt Greenwood, a motorcyclist and independent mechanic in Bend. “If what went down in Minnesota was happening in my town, I would’ve been out there doing the exact same thing.” Greenwood, a U.S. Army veteran who served in Afghanistan, feels…
Teachers As the Arbiters of a Massive New Technological Advance? If This Sounds Familiar, It’s Because It Is.
Right now, an active group of Bend-La Pine Schools parents, educators and educational experts are pressing the district to slow its roll on using artificial intelligence tools with students in the classroom. BLPS adopted a policy around AI last year, which outlines a few points on how teachers may use AI with students, but it’s…
A Natural Gas Installation Fee Could Be Coming to Bend Next Year
TThe City of Bend is reviewing a policy proposal that would add a scaled fee to the installation of natural gas equipment in residential homes, with the intent being to encourage electrification and reduce negative impacts of fossil fuel emissions. The fee proposal has drawn some attention; on Feb. 11, a City Council work session…
Tea & Art Lounge Opens Soon in Downtown Bend
A new tea and art lounge is opening in downtown Bend in March. “The concept is to create a comfy, cozy, calm, safe place for people to come and create,” explains Sarah Swoffer who owns Teal with her husband on NW Bond Street next to Deschutes Brewery. Swoffer expects to open the second week of…
The Pride in Numbers Survey is Underway
The Pride Foundation is sponsoring a new survey called “Pride in Numbers.” It’s for all adults 18+ who are LGBTQIA and Two Spirit. Nimisha Jain, one of the team members hoping to get the word out in Central Oregon, describes the information being gathered by the survey. “All kinds of questions are being asked in…
Over $5.3 Million in Federal Funds Secured for Deschutes County, Senators Announce
In a joint press release, Oregon Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden stated that they have secured “more than $92 million” for Oregon as part of funding legislation recently passed by congressional appropriations committees. Over $7.1 million will go to projects in Deschutes and Jefferson counties, with the former receiving a majority of that sum. …
Letters to the Editor, Week of Feb. 19
Kids Need Quality Education As a longtime classroom teacher and former union leader for educators, I want to unpack the Source’s Feb. 5 piece, “Oregon’s Education Workforce Climbed While Student Enrollment Slid.” Unfortunately, the headline is misleading, implying that schools are overstaffed. They are not. The numbers presented don’t account for the decades of prior…
Channeling Willie to Shut Out the Chaos
“It’s extremely hard to look out at the world today, at our communities, and come to grips with the kind of darkness that is increasingly seeping into every single last corner of day-to-day life,” says local musician Joe Estrada. “And while there’s plenty we can all be doing within our individual capacities, it’s still hard…
Meet Central Oregon Symphony’s New Executive Director
Wearing many musical hats already, Dr. Travis Allen has recently also taken on the role of executive director of the Central Oregon Symphony Association. He is a cellist extraordinaire, professor of music history and theory at COCC, member of the Dove String Quartet and frequent performer with the Sunriver Music Festival. He is also the…
Coffee: A Health Benefit or Detriment?
History has it that 15th century Sufis were among the first to brew coffee as a drink, discovering its wakening benefits for all-night devotional practices. Over the centuries, the practice spread to Europe and further west and is now by far the most popular drink worldwide. While it is loved for its caffeine content and ability…
Reubens, Rye and a Room with a View
Familiar, but fresh. Big flavors without the fuss. A New York City-style deli through a Pacific Northwest lens. That’s how I would sum up the new Stacks Dinner and Delicatessen in the Old Mill District. The nostalgic, yet polished Stacks comes from longtime local restauranteurs Steve and Cheri Helt, the duo behind Zydeco Kitchen and Cocktails…
The Iconic Osprey
If the Seattle Seahawks lived up to their namesake, they would be known as the Seattle Osprey. Inspired by these magnificent birds of prey, the team unveiled their team sea hawk logo in 1976, which was a stylized inspiration paying homage to artwork of the Kwakwaka’wakw people who lived along the Pacific Northwest coast, primarily…
Bend’s January Market Snapshot
The year 2025 and its unpredictable market are now comfortably in the rearview. With interest rates briefly reaching three-year lows, the real estate market must be returning to some semblance of normalcy… right? Let’s take a look at what the January stats are telling us about the first month of 2026. One important thing to…
Off The Radar
We’re still smack dab in the middle of that time of year when most of what’s getting released doesn’t have much cultural cachet (or a massive marketing budget) and so gets quietly released around the end of January or the top half of February…just somewhere in the first quarter of the year. I still spent…
The Hudson Opens to the Public Wed., Feb. 18
The Hudson at 900 NW Wall Street in downtown Bend will begin taking reservations on Tuesday, Feb. 17 for its official opening on Wednesday, Feb. 18. The Hudson is a live-fire chophouse and social club. Steaks, chops, seafood and vegetables are prepared over flames fueled by wood and charcoal. The Hudson is led by Dale…
