Portland's Best Food Tours

Four Shops, One Morning: A Portland Donut Tour From PSU to Old Town

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We start where the students do. Sesame Donuts is a neighborhood shop near Portland State University, and the first tray lands on the table while your guide maps out the morning. On Saturdays the PSU farmers market takes over the South Park Blocks next door, so the walk north begins between produce stalls and flower buckets.

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Then downtown. Coffee and a donut at Coco Donuts, and a few blocks on, a stop beneath Portlandia, the hammered copper woman kneeling over the entrance to the Portland Building. People walk past her every day without looking up. Don't be those people. Pioneer Courthouse Square comes next, the brick plaza Portlanders call the city's living room, and whatever is happening there that morning usually ends up in the story.

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Down to the river

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After the square the route slopes toward Old Town and the Willamette. Voodoo Doughnut lives down here, pink boxes and maple bacon bar included, and on Saturdays you reach it by wandering through the weekend art market. The last stop is Lil' Funky Donuts (some of you knew it as Mini Donut Company). Tiny donuts. Big flavor list. Pistachio and dulce de leche are the kind of thing you'll find, and you finish just a few blocks from the waterfront.

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About the rain

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It rains. We walk anyway. Jackets go on, and every shop on this food tour turns into a warm place to sit for a few minutes before the next block. Fall can bring a pumpkin fritter or a candy apple donut, depending on what the shops are frying that week.

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Come December, the Portland Downtown Donut Tour gets a seasonal twin. The Portland Holiday Donut Tour follows the same walking tour route but swings past the towering Christmas tree in Pioneer Courthouse Square, with holiday flavors waiting at the stops. Same shops, more lights.

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A lot of our Portland guests moved here recently and want a crash course in their new downtown. Four donut shops is a pretty good syllabus.