“When I feel unmoored by life, I always find my way back to Portland’s Either/Or,” writes jacksonglidden (via eaterpdx)
despite the incessant obstacles plaguing both the service industry and the queer community nationally.Ro Tam, the owner of Either/Or, sees her Williams cafe as a queer space, but she doesn’t advertise it that way. She entered the specialty coffee world in 2006, working almost exclusively for queer-owned coffee shops. Still, the gatekeeping inherent to the world of specialty coffee made her feel like an outsider. “I’ve always been on the outskirts of the coffee scene.
Everything at Either/Or — the food and drink menus, the design, the event calendar — was meant to be flexible. The menu was vegan-friendly and had multiple gluten-free options, so anyone could find something to eat. It was open from morning until late in the evening, so people could enjoy the space regardless of their schedules. The bar’s drink menu included several nonalcoholic cocktails. And the DJ lineup reflected a wide range of music styles, from R&B to rap to metal to country.
But even beyond simply logging off, Either/Or cultivated the specific sense of ease that can only come from closing a laptop, interrupting any lingering corporate anxieties, and letting an impromptu karaoke number or R&B set take over. That gentle respite often nurtured unpretentious and unapologetic companionship between work-weary strangers and friends.
At 18, meeting guys felt easy; it was meeting girls and other queer people that felt difficult. Then, my editor at the school paper, Mars, clued me into, an LGBTQ-owned coffee shop in Somerville, Massachusetts. I’d bring my homework there and work, comforted by the fact that I was quietly surrounded by queer people. I could strike up a conversation, or not.
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