Don Lundgren, Owner of Rabelais Books, on Washington Aenue, This Afternoon.

Some of the Books for Sale atRabelais Books Pup-up on Washington Avenue Until the end of September 2024.

The Grand Opening of Rabelis Books, a pop-up culinary  bookstore, was held on Friday, July 5th at the Black Boxes shipping containers complex at 93  Washington Avenue according to business owner Don Lundgren.  The pop-up closes in late September 2024.

The inventory for this pop-up includes 600 titles.  That inventory includes food and drink related books. literature about food, ephermeral material, books on food history, and much more.

Lundgren’s interest in books dates back to his college days at the University of Chicago.  He worked at a”scholarly” bookstore part-time – and was hooked on the possibilities therein.

The use of the black boxes which were shipping containers was the idea of Jed T. Harris, former owner of the J. J. Nissen Bakery Building.  After several years of workng to get the approval from the city of Portland, the black boxes arrived on Washington Avenue on August 13, 2018.

It took an inordinate amount of time, even for the notoriously slow city of Portland, to  approve  this complex of shipping containers for retail use.  That slowness was attributed in part to this novel appliction – the first of its kind in Portland.  There was no prototype in place to reference.  Harris’s  original idea was to provide “incubator” space for start-up businesses looking to sell their products without a large financial investment initially.

Some of those start-up businesses who have successfuly graduated to larger spaces in the area include:  Strata, North Optical. Alice Yardley Handbag Design and the nearby  Cheese Shop.

Rabelais Books will be open six days a week from 11:00 am – 7:00 pm.   It will be closed on Tuesdays.

For more information on the history of the Black Boxes on Washington Avenue, please visit post herein dated August 13, 2018.