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Ben Coleman

Hello! I am a freelancer for the paper. I cover movies mostly, but sometimes video games, comic books, and whatever else comes up.
Posted inFood and Drink

Good Girl Is the Central Eastside’s New “Slutty Goth Dive Bar”

Good Girl takes over the spot formerly occupied by Home, A Bar.
Avatar photo by Ben Coleman

There’s a Playboy from 2003 sitting at the end of the bar, across from a cluttered gallery wall of gilded religious iconography lit by a row of guttering candles. Golden light flickers across the millennial centerfold’s golden skin as she poses demurely on pale satin sheets. At the door, a couple of drag queens are […]

Posted inFood

The Secret Is in the Sauce

Portland’s Sunday Sauce is an homage to old-school Italian eateries.
Avatar photo Ben Coleman

[What follows is one of the many articles in the Mercury‘s Black Innovators & Changemakers issue. Find a print copy here, subscribe to get a copy mailed to you here, and if you’re feeling generous and want to keep these types of articles coming, support us here.—eds.] “Judson and I met in Hoboken, New Jersey, working […]

Posted inMercury 2025 Recap

A Moment in a Coffee Shop

Remembering the year that was, and the Portland that’s actually Portland.
Avatar photo Ben Coleman

This time last year I was sitting in a quiet cafe trying to decide if Portland was any different from anywhere else.  This was one of those eclectic, slightly hippie-ish coffee shops that used to be more common: colorful walls, mismatched armchairs, a big chalkboard advertising a local chess night and a knitting club. It […]

Posted inDating

Strangers in the Nights

How two singles nights are changing the way Portlanders are finding love, friendship, and hookups.
Avatar photo Ben Coleman

“Have you ever fallen for someone you weren’t initially attracted to?” asks a large laminated flashcard in the center of a tastefully distressed wood table. The table is in the back corner of the “music room” of the SoHo House member’s club, itself located in a fashionably distressed brick building hidden away in Southeast Portland. […]

Posted inMercury 25th Anniversary Issue

Bad Idea, Right?

A retrospective of the Mercury articles that (maybe?) should’ve never seen the light of day.
Avatar photo Ben Coleman

[Find the Mercury‘s 25th Anniversary Issue (in print) near you by using this handy-dandy map, and read all of our anniversary stories here.—eds.] The first issue of the Portland Mercury debuted in June 2000, coinciding with a rare alignment of six planets and the introduction of the Nokia brick phone. No, it wasn’t founded in the […]

Posted inFood Issue 2025

Home Away from Home

Lombard’s “Little Tri-State” brings the East Coast to North Portland.
Avatar photo Ben Coleman

Portland has a lot of transplants, but for whatever reason there aren’t a ton of transplant communities. Big cities like New York, Chicago, and LA have dozens of ethnic and cultural enclaves, a Little Italy here, a Little Ethiopia there. Historically Portland did have a few of those kinds of neighborhoods in the early 1900s, […]

Posted inFood and Drink

Shaken, Stirred… and Make It Quick

Speed Rack is the femme-fronted, speed-bartending competition we’ve been thirsty for.
Avatar photo Ben Coleman

Portland has a lot of bars and a lot of bartenders. And a lot of those bartenders aren’t dudes, despite the somewhat bro-y atmosphere food service gets sometimes. Femme bartenders put up with a lot and don’t always have an opportunity to earn accolades beyond the after-shift tip pool. Enter Speed Rack, self-described as “an […]

Posted inHoliday Guide 2024 🎅

Fairytale of Old Portland

A love letter to a less shiny city, and the teenagers, insomniacs,
and eccentrics who populated it.
Avatar photo Ben Coleman

[Editor’s note: Read all our holly jolly HOLIDAY GUIDE articles here. Looking for a print copy? Good! You can find it in more than 500 spots across Portland with this handy map!] It was December 25, 2013, and everyone in the gay steakhouse was getting amiably drunk. It was one of those Portland winters that […]

Posted inHoliday Guide 2023

The Holiday Brisket Roundup

Where to find Portland’s finest, most tender brisket for your Jewish celebrations.
Avatar photo Ben Coleman

What’s considered holiday food by the Jewish diaspora probably has as many answers as there are members of the Jewish diaspora, but a recurring theme are meat-heavy mid-century mains that at least vaguely conform to a kosher diet. This is largely thanks to the many European emigres who passed through the East Coast deli zone […]

Posted inCulture

What Happens at a Shrek Rave?

In which a Mercury writer considers Judith Butler, on a dance floor full of gender-swapped Shreks and Fionas.
Avatar photo Ben Coleman

What’s It Like at the Shrek Rave? We Sent a Writer.
Jodie Foster voice: “They should have sent a poet.”

As Judith Butler once wrote, “gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original,” and there is no better example of this than a bunch of Zillennials transmogrifying Mike Myers’ occasionally problematic mocap antics into a vibrant drag show. 

Gender-Swapped Costumes and Smash Mouth Beats Take Over the Dance Floor

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