BJ Smith, the former Smokehouse Tavern owner and “Top Chef” contestant, has teamed up with Swift Lounge owners Paul Francis and Robert Thomas on a new North Portland bar.
Sit-Tite, which opened last Saturday, took over the North Interstate Avenue storefront previously home to The Coop, just south of the Arbor Lodge New Seasons. The “longtime friends and now business partners” split the space into three distinct areas, an arcade room with six pinball machines, a pool table and photo booth; a bar and dining room; and a large outdoor space in the backyard.
Smith, who previously ran The Original Dinerant and owned Northwest Portland’s Smokehouse 21 and its Southeast Portland sister, Smokehouse Tavern, among other concepts, recently spent six months working at Okta, the McMinnville hotspot recently named one of the New York Times’ 50 favorite restaurants for 2023.
According to Smith, Sit-Tite will serve “blue-collar East Coast Italian fare,” including fried calamari, fried ravioli; various Parm sandwiches including a meatball and an eggplant and two pastas, spaghetti and meatballs and a rigatoni with spicy vodka sauce. The drinks menu includes non-alcoholic cocktails “for the non drinkers like myself,” Smith said.
North Portland’s new Sit-Tite bar has three Parm sandwiches on its menu, a meatball, an eggplant and a chicken.Courtesy of Sit-Tite
“Our mission with this project has been to create something fun, not too expensive and embracing the “old Portland” vibe that we don’t see too much of these days,” Smith wrote in an email. “We really just want to provide a fun space with great food and delicious cocktails.”
Sit-Tite is open from 4 p.m. to midnight Sunday-Thursday and 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. Friday-Saturday at 6214 N. Interstate Ave., sit-tite.com
— Michael Russell; mrussell@oregonian.com
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Dining and Cooking