James Bean Cafe

This café was recommended by Siri — touring downtown Portland and wanted early dinner. We liked the menu — an adventuresome spirit overtook us as we wandered the sidewalks and peeked into shops. Grilled lamb and grass fed bison? My husband enjoys being a carnivore. Me — trying to go vegetarian. The bison was flavorful and tender, and the tofu vegetable stir fry has a wonderful variety of seasonal vegetables in it — eggplant, mushrooms, broccoli, cauliflower… and more!
The chef could be seen behind the large kitchen area window, cooking everything fresh. Great place.

Anyone that works downtown knows that it’s got a lame variety of breakfast spots. Breakfast? Run for your lives… Run straight to James Bean Café and talk to Linda. She’ll make you the best breakfast sandwich in all of downtown Portland. I promise you will not be disappointed.
Linda is the main lady that works there — always smiling always so friendly. She is a breath of fresh air when it comes to hospitality downtown.
My suggestion: Whole-​wheat English muffin, veggie sausage, egg (real & fresh), cheddar and the most important part — the spicy sauce (sriracha)! I can not emphasis enough how amazing this place is.
Smoothies? Haven’t grabbed one yet — but after what I saw today I’m getting one soon. Fresh strawberries, fresh banana and a whole lot of awesomeness.

Maybe the appeal is not their strong suit. Sure. But I am not coming here to have a romantic dinner. What pulled me in was the sign advertising smoothies. What keeps me coming back is the way they make them.
No frozen fruit. No canned fruit. No pre-​arranged fruit. She actually took a fresh banana, peeled it and dropped it in the blender. She peeled the kiwi too. She started to peel the mango but decided that it was not ripe enough so she found better one.
Old fashion way of doing things is sometimes the best way to go.

James Bean is in the same building as Bally’s fitness in downtown P Town. James Bean is also directly across of Starbucks. I’m happy to say that I prefer James Bean over Starbucks. Yeah yeah we know starbucks is corporate evil chain of cawfee, but I don’t care for Starbucks much because coffee drinks there taste like not coffee.
Now, James Bean serves pretty much everything from regular coffee to frou frou blended cawfee drinks and even though it’s not the best cawfee in town, drinks here are pretty decent. They also serve breakfast items such as bagels, yogurt, etc. The James Bean’s lady is very nice and seems like she knows her regular customers.
I don’t mind to get my cawfee here from time to time. It’s nice to be able to purchase my cawfee drinks and they taste like cawfee.

I’m surprised this place hasn’t gotten reviewed more; it is in downtown Portland, after all. Perhaps folks have reviewed the other eateries that are all connected to this Bally Fitness branch downtown, and included James Bean with those reviews. Still???
Let me start by saying I don’t like Starbucks. Therefore, the less like Starbucks a coffee place is (i.e. ultraclean, ultracorporate, hipster baristas that act like they could care less about anything much less their few customers who don’t wear nerd glasses, etc.) the more I am likely to like it.
That said, I really liked James Bean. The barista was a friendly lady who made sure I got exactly the cup of joe that I wanted. When she handed me my cappucino she said, «Make sure to come back if you want more milk in it.» That is exactly the opposite of what I would’ve heard at McStarbucks, where they want you out of there as soon as they have your money. More importantly, the coffee itself tasted approximately 1,000 times better than SB’s.
I will be coming back to James Bean when I want a good cup of joe downtown.

Eh, we stepped in to this place to get a cup of coffee, and it was so unappealing that we decided to go across the street to Starbucks. That pretty much sums is up, ya know?