Blackheart Bagels boiled its last batch in 2020. Here's what happened after, and why the sign stayed up.
Blackheart Bagels opened in Portland's Kenton neighborhood in 2015, boiling and baking small batches for the wholesale accounts, delis, and grocers that carried its bagels around the metro. It ran on wholesale orders and a short but devoted retail following — no storefront queue, just a delivery van and a good relationship with Green Zebra Grocery.
Like a lot of small food businesses, it didn't survive 2020. The ovens went cold, the domain lapsed, and for a few years the only trace of Blackheart Bagels left online was an archived catering page.
We picked up the expired domain and, rather than let a good name go to waste, turned it into something new: a journal about Portland's bagel and food culture, written in the same plain-spoken, slightly stubborn spirit the shop was known for.
We're not reopening a bakery. We're not affiliated with the original owners or operators. We're just a small editorial project that liked the name, liked the city's food scene, and thought both deserved somewhere to keep being written about.
Profiles and interviews with the people running Portland's bagel counters, boiling kettles, and wholesale kitchens.
Where shops open, where they close, and what that says about the blocks they sit on — Kenton included.
Notes on malt versus honey, boiling times, and the other small decisions that separate a good bagel from a fine one.
If you know a bakery worth writing about — or you remember the original Blackheart Bagels — we'd like to hear from you.
Get in touch