For many Portlanders, strawberry season is the official kickoff to summer. Embracing the battle for flats of bright red Hoods at U-pick farms, they emerge with buckets out and gardening gloves on, ready to pluck berries fresh off the plant.

But for cutesy Montavilla cafe Zuckercreme, the strawberry frenzy is a year-round state of mind. Here, a collection of strawberry-themed items crafted by local makers and bakers decorate the petite yet packed retail space. Orchestrated by native Hoosier Brittany Sigal, Zuckercreme is an ode to the Pacific Northwest’s early-season berry in the form of a pastry shop and “museum,” which hosts a month-long schedule of strawberry-themed events each June. 

Even on a gloomy day in January, a stop into Zuckercreme could remedy seasonal depression. The ceiling is decked with string lights, a disco ball, and lined with pink tinsel curtains. The walls are covered in embroidery, punch needle, illustrations, and murals (painted by artist Brianna Vizcaino) dedicated to strawberries. When Sigal started personalizing the space, acquired in October 2021, she found herself in a bit of a rabbit hole. “I just started finding so much strawberry art,” she explains. “I had no idea how much cute strawberry art existed in the world, especially in Portland.”

Sigal wasn’t always a strawberry fiend. Prior to moving to Portland, she spent a harvest season at a strawberry-lavender farm in Montana. She completed a tradeswoman program in Portland, but pivoted to bake sales when she got laid off during the first months of the pandemic. “I’ve always been a seasonal cooking person,” she says. After making connections in the local baking community, Sigal eventually landed a food operations role at the now-closed modern European restaurant KĂŒchenHaus. 

When KĂŒchenHaus started hosting vendor markets in May 2021, Sigal staged the first edition of the strawberry festival, which received an overwhelmingly positive response. “The strawberries found me in a way,” she says. “It was the right time, right place, kind of situation and the time of the year.” Collaborating with a handful of vendors she met through the bake sales, Sigal launched with one condition—make it strawberry-themed. “I had no idea that people were gonna like it,” she says. “It was lined around the block; we sold out every weekend in June. It just took off from there.”

After hosting a few more vendor markets at KĂŒchenHaus, Sigal opened her own space in Montavilla. She cites hosting hot dog bingo parties and adult Easter egg hunts as precursors for what exists today at Zuckercreme: an event-heavy community space. “I’ve thrown themed parties for my friends and I love a curated vibe,” she explains. “That’s the inspiration for everything I do.” A few early attempts at themes like “summer camp” and “country fair” proved to Sigal that strawberries were always going to be the crowd pleaser. “I figured out what the business was going to be and then let it evolve naturally,” she explains. “Strawberry was the winner and the one I was most excited about.” 

Zuckercreme is an ever-evolving space, so Sigal jokes that customers are unsure of whether or not they’re in the same space with each new visit. Since its opening, she has stocked the shop’s shelves with stickers, stationary, mugs, hair clips, you name it—all adorned with strawberries. Several racks hold berry-patterned clothing and purses, and there’s even a strawberry-painted mailbox where visitors can drop cards for USPS. All of the products for sale are supplied by local artists who don’t have their own permanent retail space.

Beyond its giftier items, Zuckercreme’s dessert offerings are also sourced from the community. Sigal has created what she’s coined a “consignment program” for emerging bakers. “I work with a lot of people who have their cottage businesses and want to get experience with wholesale and being in a store, so I do a lot of the recipe development with them,” she explains. Under this model, pastry selections rotate out frequently, so each visit to the cafe will likely guarantee the chance to try a new treat on the shelf. 

Alongside the pastry program, there’s also an anchor menu of sundaes, soft serve, beverages, and ice cream, the latter of which is churned by Geneva Chaplar of Hound Dog Ice Cream. Sundaes are emblematic of the fruity cheer that Zuckercreme brings to the Montavilla neighborhood, topped with glittery strawberry milk powder, shortcake crumble, and shots of bright green matcha over affogatos.

Zuckercreme hosts its fifth annual season of strawberry celebrations this year. In the past, visitors have partaken in events like strawberry fashion shows, felt crafting workshops, and running a strawberry shortcake special as part of the James Beard Public Market’s Strawberry Shortcake Week. This year, the festival launches June 6, and will feature strawberry tattoos from Double Gemini, face painting by PDX Transformations, and a reprise of the popular needle felting workshops, among other crafts. “Every year there are new vendors and events,” Sigal says. “It’s always different. It’s just evolved. I never know what to expect.”

Beyond its summer festivities, Sigal wants to keep building the museum concept within the store. “I want to keep layering it and layering it till it’s just insane,” she says. For her, the best part of the experience has been seeing the surprise in people’s faces when they walk into her explosively bright space. “There’s not a day that someone doesn’t come in here and is like, ‘WOW what is this? This is so cool! It’s so cute!’ It’s really great that this space sparks joy as soon as you walk in, to the point where you verbally have to say ‘wow’.”

 

 

Portland Strawberry Museum starts June 6; Zuckercreme, 414 SE 81st, zuckercreme.com