Portland’s Slide Inn, known for serving German dishes with vegan and gluten-free options will close May 10.
PORTLAND, Ore. — A Portland restaurant with multiple appearances in the comedy sketch show “Portlandia” is closing its doors after 13 years.
The Slide Inn, known for serving German-inspired dishes with vegan and gluten-free options, has been a Kerns-Buckman neighborhood staple. Owners Eugen and Lenor Bingham first opened the location on Southeast Ankeny Street and Southeast 24th Avenue as an Italian restaurant, Il Piatto, which closed in 2012.
This story continues below.
The couple moved from San Francisco and operated Il Piatto for 18 years before changing gears. Lenor said pasta started to lose popularity, and German food seemed like the obvious next step for them.
Eugen started to cook at age 15 in Germany through an apprenticeship program. “It’s been a passion and it’s been a joy,” he said. “It’s something that is hard to let go of.”
Many of Il Piatto’s favorites stayed on the menu, where people could order house-made smoked sausages or vegan and gluten-free potato gnocchi.
But now, after nearly 32 years in the restaurant business, Eugen and Lenor say it’s time to be done.
“We just decided,” Lenor said. “It’s like everything has a beginning, middle, and end in life.”
It’s not the rising costs, Eugen said. The restaurant makes everything from scratch, and even with the obvious price increases, such as eggs and flour, he said the impact hasn’t made a difference.
Being a restaurant owner, Lenor said, is like having another child. If they wanted to take a trip, it meant figuring out how to keep the restaurant going — and after 32 years, that’s a lot of birthdays and anniversaries put on the back burner, she said.
“We could have just kept going,” Lenor said. “But we just wanted something else. Another chapter.”
“New trails,” Eugen added.
Il Piatto and the Slide Inn were early adopters of gluten-free menu items, with most items able to be made gluten-free. Lenor, who has celiac disease, said it was important to them to have a diverse menu — later adding vegan items.
Eugen said they’d often see 10-person group reservations where just one person is gluten-free, and that’s the reason they chose to come to the restaurant. About 60% to 70% of their customers, he said, were either gluten-free or vegan. They wanted to create a space where people felt safe with food.
“We garnished a large segment of our clientele that have dietary restrictions which we address here and do it carefully,” Eugen said.
The couple said they’re going to miss the neighborhood most. During the pandemic, Eugen would hand-deliver orders to people’s doors.
“That’s the hardest part in moving on is we love the people that have made our dream come true,” Lenor said. “I mean 32 years of support, that’s during COVID, hard times, good times, our people have always been there. They supported our vision and what we wanted to create.”
The Slide Inn’s final day is May 10. Afterward, Lenor and Eugen plan to hold a garage sale May 16-17 with many restaurant items and art. Lenor herself is an artist and plans to continue that passion when the restaurant ends.
“We just decided OK it’s our time and someone else will do a beautiful thing in this space,” she said. “It’s our time to travel, we love traveling, we wanna do that and I’ll be pursuing my art and we’re just gonna hang out. Our kids are at that age they’re getting married and they don’t live in Portland so we get to go and hang out with them.”
Dining and Cooking