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North St. Bags

It’s no secret the AM:PM PR crew loves its neighborhood. While we typically talk up the local bars and eateries, there are other less calorically detrimental businesses that we think are equally neat. Just up Clinton St. from our offices, perfectly positioned just off one of SE Portland’s main bike boulevards on 23rd and SE Clinton, is the factory showroom of North St. Bags – a really cool bike bag and accessory company.

A well-made bike bag could come in handy for some of us, Pat: I’m looking at you. Others of us just drink coffee delivered by bike. If any of you saddle up frequently, just know that North St. is producing some solid bike gear. The company’s website makes it easy to choose your own custom bag color combos, including the base color, trim and lining. It’s these kind of details that I’m a real sucker for. A handful of bike shops in town carry the bags, but ordering online allows you to be the architect of your perfect pack.

While the waterproof designs are ideal for serious all-weather cyclists (ie. not me), I’m contemplating picking one up for use on hikes, and other upcoming summer adventures. Check ‘em out, and let us know what you think.

north-st-bag-dude

Clinton Street Roundup – Part One

We’re all nestled in to our new home at the Cyrk Building. While we’ll miss our lovely neighbors in the Buckman neighborhood, we’re excited to be starting our new life as part of vibrant SE Clinton Street.

In typical AM:PM PR fashion we’ve already busied ourselves trying the various cafes and restaurants in the area. Since we were without a home for over a month, we had ample opportunity to meet as a team at many of these fine establishments to discuss business and taste the food and drink the neighborhood has to offer.

We’ll continue to update the Be My Neighbor section of the website with posts detailing our favorite spots as we discover them. For now, here’s a roundup of our current crushes.

 

K&F Coffee

K & F roasts its own coffee (it’s delicious, by the way) and they offer a pretty impressive variety of baked goods to nibble while you sip your beverage of choice. It was the site of our first offsite meeting and it’s a classic Portland coffeehouse that I’m sure we’ll continue to regularly frequent.

 

Dot's Cafe

Clinton St. staple, Dot’s Cafe, has been around for more than 20 years. It’s one of our favorite lunch spots on a cold winter day due to its signature coziness and velvet-painting-festooned walls. They serve up classic, high quality bar food and stiff drinks, what more could one want?

 

St. Jack Portland

We’re lucky to be just down the block from St. Jack – both the restaurant and the patisserie. The patisserie has drawn us in several times over the last month with its perfectly crafted traditional french pastries like buttery croissants, canelés and macarons. We’ll have to be careful to resist the urge to swing by daily since swimsuit season is just around the corner.

 

Compote Cafe

Compote has been serving the Clinton St. neighborhood delectable breakfast and lunch items made from scratch with wholesome ingredients for over two years. Located just two doors down from our space it will be difficult to resist a daily stop for a homemade treat.

 

Night Light Lounge

What neighborhood would be complete without the perfect after work hang out? Night Light Lounge boasts one of the best happy hours in town (trust me, I’m an expert) and even serves brunch on the weekends. I can foresee many PR 3.0 meetings continuing after hours at this classic SE spot.

Those are among our current favorites. Stay tuned to the Be My Neighbor blog for additions. Are there any places you love that we didn’t mention? If so, please share share with us in the comments section.

The Cyrk

Movin’ on up, to (a new part of) the East Side & Joining The Cyrk

As much as we’ve loved our time in the Buckman Neighborhood – rubbing shoulders with the mad scientists of Distillery Row, descending like locusts upon local eateries such as Robo Taco and Vivo, and working with neighbors Bremik, Tapalaya, Po’Boy Art and more – it’s the dawn of a new year and a new era for AM:PM PR.

We survived an overinflated panic surrounding a misinterpretation of the Mayan calendar, and we figured why not treat ourselves to a new space. Not to toot our own horns (TOOT!), but it’s a doozie.

At the beginning of February, we’ll take up residence in the Cyrk Building on southeast 20th and Clinton. For those of you who’ve yet to cast your eyes on this miracle of modern building techniques, feel free to drive by and check it out. It’s a gorgeous space that we’ll share both with our brothers in arms at 7/Apps and our clients EE Northwest. The latter owns the building and was kind enough to approve our tenant application. We’ll try to keep the noise level down.

AM:PM PR joins the Cyrk-us

For those of you who understand how calendars work and are wondering about the omission of a little thing called January, well done. That was a test, and it’s nice to see that you were paying attention. As construction is finished up on our new space, we’ll be going back to our roots.

Just as in the early days of AM:PM, we’ll be a bit like the French Resistance, except with public relations instead of freedom fighting, and minus the Gauloises. We’ll meet at a variety of our favorite coffee shops, restaurants and watering holes, keeping the client work that’s our bread and butter firmly intact. You likely won’t notice much difference unless you meet us face-to-face, in which case the password is “Le Coq Sportif.” Also, feel free to give us suggestions for great coffee shops that can accommodate large groups of mostly serious professionals.

During the next month, we’ll keep you updated on our activities and the construction’s progress via the usual channels: our blog, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn. We’ll also be getting to know our new neighbors. We’ve already visited St. Jacks, Compote, The Night Light Lounge and more, and look forward to getting to know them and their tasty offerings even better.

When we get moved into the new space, we don’t expect you’ll miss it. We’ll have a hard time not crowing from pride about our new digs, and of course there will be office-warming festivities to attend to. Keep an eye out for something occurring around St. Patrick’s Day.

We’ll also be working on new job titles and a high-flying new concept for the website that will highlight the subtle circus theme of our new digs. Prepare yourself for the greatest communications show on Earth, or at least in Portland. In the meantime, Happy New Year. We hope you’ve got as much to look forward as we do.