FIREHOUSE RESTAURANT

Parties and Special Events

We just finished our winter/holiday party season and we're already getting inquiries for springtime and summer events here at Firehouse. We love to throw parties and we would be more than happy to host your event. Whether it's a rehearsal dinner, company party, wedding or simply a gathering of friends and family, we can accommodate your needs and provide a very memorable event. Please visit our Parties/Events page for more information or contact Jennie at 503-789-7953 or events.firehouse@gmail.com

Winter Break at Firehouse begins December 23rd

We will be closing for our winter break from December 23rd to January 5th, reopening at 5p.m. on Friday, January 6th. 

Also, on Tuesday, December 20th, we will be closed for a private party.

We wish everyone the very best this holiday season and we look forward to seeing you in the new year.

Matthew

We will be closed Wednesday the 23rd and Thanksgiving Day

All of us at Firehouse wish you a very happy holiday!

Holiday Parties and New Hours for the Winter

It really is a special time of the year during the holidays at Firehouse. Families, businesses and friends join us for parties, filling the upstairs and down, creating a spirit of joy and community unlike any other time of the year. I don't hesitate when I say that Firehouse is most beautiful when it is full of people laughing, sharing and passing platters of food and bottles of wine. Our family style dinners help bring people together and create a sense of intimacy with those next to us. To bring this experience to you is what we have always strived to do at Firehouse. For us, there are few things more rewarding than making others happy, and that is why we so look forward to this season. 

November and December event space is still available. You may contact Jennie at 503-789-7953 for information and please do check our Parties/Events page for sample menus and other information.

Holiday schedule

Firehouse will be closed for the holidays from December 23rd through January 5th, reopening Friday, January 6th at 5p.m.

New Hours beginning October 16th

Monday through Thursday, 5p.m. - 9p.m.

Friday & Saturday, 5p.m. - 10p.m.

Sunday, 5p.m. - 8p.m.

please note, the latter times indicate the time we stop seating, not the time we close. 

Double Mountain Brewery Dinner, August 16th

It is with great pleasure that we will be hosting a Double Mountain Brewery Dinner on Tuesday, August 16th. Since we opened over three years ago we've really enjoyed working with Double Mountain and have had the Hop Lava IPA on our taps the entire time. I can't say enough about their beer and it's always a joy to make it out to Hood River and visit their taproom. In fact, this past holiday season the entire Firehouse family made its way out there for some libations and pizzas and an incredible tour of the brewery led by the very kind Charlie Devereux. 

That said, we jumped at the opportunity to host a very special dinner that will feature five beers from Double Mountain and a five-course meal that will be held on our patio at Firehouse. The menu is posted below and reservation can be made now by calling Firehouse at 503-954-1702. Seats are fifty dollars each and includes food and beverage. Please note that it does not include gratuity. 

We hope to see you here!

Aviary Benefit Dinner next Monday, July 25th

We hope that you can join us for a very special evening of support for Aviary. Dinner begins at 6:30 with live music beginning around 7:30 and continuing through the after-dinner no host bar. We are asking for a minimum donation of thirty five dollars per seat and this will include the four course dinner AND wine through dinner.

Timothy, Elizabeth and I are overwhelmed by the generosity of many of our purveyors who have donated products for the evening's dinner. Ritrovo, Groundworks, Sunshine Dairy, Viridian Farms, Provvista, SP, Nicky, Tails and Trotters, and SP Meats--thank you all so very much for your kindness and support. 

The tentative menu is below. The parties and events at Firehouse are served family style and everything on the menu is included. 

We hope to see you Monday!

Warm regards, 

Matthew

NEWS! Timothy joins us, Aviary, dates to remember

Timothy Wastell Joining Us At Firehouse:

We at Firehouse are pleased to announce the addition of Timothy Wastell to our chef team. Most recently of DOC, Timothy will join us July 18th as our sous chef Jason "JJ" Sacho prepares to leave for upstate New York. Jason has been with us since we opened our doors over 3 years ago and has been a dear friend, confidant and master pizza maker. Much of our success can be attributed to JJ's keen sense of the beauty of a classic Neapolitan pizza and for that we will be forever grateful. The laughs, idiocy and lunacy of working side by side with JJ will always be remembered. From perfecting the early 80's dance move "the robot" to trying to trap a stray nutria to all of the one-liners that will someday make an incredibly ridiculous flip calendar, our time with JJ will be forever etched into our memories as some of the most important and bizarre of our lives.

Aviary Benefit Dinner: 

As many of you know there was a fire during this year's July 4th festivities that damaged the building that houses NE Portland's Aviary Restaurant. Aviary has been forced to temporarily close their doors as the damaged building is repaired. Open just 5 months before this terrible tragedy we want to help in any way that we can. When we first heard the story our hearts sank. A fire ranks high on the list of things that you dread most as a restaurant owner. We immediately started brainstorming, trying to imagine what we would need most if this happened to us. First thing was just to extend a hand and let them know that there is a very giving restaurant community here in Portland that would support them. The next thing would be money. Every little bit helps in this industry and we figured that if we could raise just a few thousand dollars to help offset opening inventory costs, damaged goods, whatever, that would be the next best thing that we could offer.

So on July 25th Firehouse will be hosting a benefit dinner at which all proceeds will go directly to Aviary to help in their efforts to reopen. We will be closed for normal business hours that day as we hope to attract a full house of well wishers and food lovers for the event. 

The four course dinner will include wine and beer and begins at 6:30. A minimum donation of $35 per person is requested. After dinner there will be live music and a no host bar. We're hoping for good weather so the patio and garden will be used as well. 

To reserve a seat please call Firehouse at 503-954-1702. Payment is required at time of reservation. 

We would like to thank everyone in advance for their support. From the purveyors who will be donating food and wine, to our staffs who will volunteer their time, to all of community minded food lovers, you all are the folks that make Portland such an incredible place to live.

Many thanks and warmest regards to all, 

Matthew, Elizabeth, Calvin, Jason, Timothy, Connor, Daniel, Adan, Amy, Steven, Kirsten, Teresa, Matthew S., Leah, Jordan, and Fluffer

And some dates to remember:

We will be closed this coming Friday the 15th for a private event. 

We will also be closed July 17th-July 19th, Sunday through Tuesday, for our annual Firehouse potluck and to give me and Timothy some time to play in the kitchen. 

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience. 

Back from Spring Break and Now Open 7 nights a Week!

Last week the staff and my family took a few days off and spent some time in San Francisco. With the recent addition of 4 new staff members we thought it a good idea to get to know one another, share great food, and get a little rest before opening seven nights a week. Oh, and to get some sunshine as well! We did all of that and more.

The San Francisco Bay Area will always hold a special place in my heart because it is home. It's also where many of my dearest friends and mother still live and it is where I began my work in restaurants. So when we hatched the idea of taking sixteen of us on a little trip San Francisco was a no-brainer.

In short, it was a four night trip of culinary gluttony. At one point, Connor and I had a chorizo burrito from El taco Loco, ice cream from Humphrey Slocombe, a Philz coffee, and some oysters in the Castro--all within a two hours. And that was just the beginning. Then came A16, Nopa, Cotogna, Nopa again, SPQR, EL Taco Loco again, Mission Chinese, Nopa again...and the list goes on. We ate, and kept on eating.

Well rested and ready to go, we are ready to open seven nights a week. We never really expected to do this but the demand became obvious. Our new schedule is posted below and we look forward to seeing you on Monday and Tuesday evenings as well!

Matthew

FIREHOUSE SPRING BREAK IN SAN FRANCISCO!

FIREHOUSE will be closed April 11th thru the 14th as we take our beloved staff to San Francisco for food and fun.

If you wish to make a reservation during this time please use the function on our Home Page.

We will reopen Friday the 15th at 5p.m.

In addition, on Sunday the 10th we will stop seating at 7:30 p.m. so that we may shut the restaurant down before our trip.

BIG NEWS BELOW!

SEVEN NIGHTS A WEEK BEGINNING APRIL 25th!

Firehouse will be open seven nights a week beginning April 25th. Long overdue, I know, but we are now ready!

Our new hours will be:

Sunday thru Thursday, 5p.m.- 9p.m.

Friday and Saturday, 5p.m.- 10p.m.

We look forward to seeing you!

In the news thanks to you!

http://www.portlandmonthlymag.com/eat-and-drink/articles/hidden-gems-march-2011/#firehouse

We're very proud at Firehouse to have grown in popularity as we have over the last two and a half years. I'm still astonished that we are as busy as we are considering that it has been mostly a grassroots effort to be successful: no PR, no publicist, and very little spent on advertising. So when we get recognized it's especially heartwarming and meaningful.

I would like to extend a personal thanks to all of our guests and especially to the Firehouse staff, ever humble and hardworking, for making this all possible.

Matthew

Shhhh....we're a secret.

Perhaps Portland's best-kept secret, Firehouse is the genuine expression of cozy, rustic hospitality that so many Napa valley restaurateurs try to emulate. A painstakingly renovated phoenix, the hundred-year old former fire station now serves wood-fired pizza, a smoky rotisserie chicken to rival Zuni Cafe's, delicate but substantial salads, and a smart assortment of antipasti. Come for the lemon and garlic potatoes, stay for the embrace of a warm, happy space. The consummately friendly and professional staff will remember you, and make you forget all the water glasses your apathetic hipster waitress never filled at lesser establishments....Saveur Magazine

For more of the article: http://www.saveur.com/article/Travels/City-Dozen-Chris-Onstad-and-Sarah-Kanabays-Portland-Oregon

New Year's Eve Dinner at Firehouse

Join us this New Year's Eve for a very special six-course dinner. Local black truffles, handmade pasta, persimmons, meyer lemons, and the real deal porchetta are a few items that will be featured!

We will also have an expanded wine by the glass list as well as some very beautiful apertifs and digestifs, including a grappa flight and an amaro flight. 

And of course, we will once again be roasting chestnuts at our front door!

A reminder: we will be closed for the holidays from December 20th through the 28th, reopening Wednesday the 29th. Though closed, we will still be at the restaurant so please do not hesitate to call for reservations for New Year's Eve or otherwise.

Happiest of holidays to everyone from us at Firehouse!

News, Thanksgiving, Upcoming Menu Changes

I thought I'd start this update with a picture of our boy Calvin. What makes this picture so special is that it was taken out at Sauvie Island when just he and I got to break away for a few hours and spend some time together. With our recent opening of Woodlawn Coffee and Pastry and the normal day-to-day rigors of operating Firehouse times like this aren't often possible. Truth be told, I can't remember the last time I had the opportunity to spend a few hours with Calvin outside of work. 

Needless to say, this time was special. I got to be a daddy, and being a daddy is the one thing I've always wanted to be more than anything else. 

As we took the hay ride out to the pumpkin patch and plodded through the mud to find a pumpkin that Calvin could call his own, the tractor bumped and slid through the rain soaked ground. Calvin nestled himself in my lap and held my hands for safety. It was one of the rare moments in my life as a new father that that I was able to feel like my dream of being a daddy had come true. Calvin needed MY hands to hold on to... and it was just what I needed too. 

Thanksgiving Hours

So that we may thoroughly enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday Firehouse will be closed both Wednesday the 24th and Thanksgiving Day.

We will reopen Friday evening, the 26th at 5 p.m. and resume our normal business hours.

Menu Updates

There have recently been a few changes to the menu with many more to come. Just today I made some lamb sausage that will replace the pork fennel sausage on one of the pizzas. Some beautiful rock fish is available this week and we will be plating it with red wine braised lentils, roasted carrots and bread-parsley salsa. The rotisserie chicken is being served with creamy polenta, oii cured olives and a carmelized onion and chicken jus.

Coming soon will be lamb meatballs, sausages, and a tweak to the menu format that will include nightly rotisserie and wood fired grill specials...porchetta, suckling pig, rib roast, leg of lamb and sausages to name a few!

Winter is here and we are ready to embrace it with food that will help you get through the next 8 months of winter. 

Warmest regards from all of us at Firehouse!

Grand Opening of Woodlawn Coffee and Pastry!

Benefit Dinner for The Woodlawn Children's Gardening Program

Please join us on Tuesday, September 28th, for our 3rd seasonal Stone Soup Supper Feast benefitting The Woodlawn Children's Garden. We will once again host a 4-course dinner with all proceeds going directly to this very special program. These festive dinners not only aim to raise much needed money to keep the program alive and well but also aim to rally the spirit and resources of our community to ensure the continued growth of the program. 

Tickets for the event are $45 for dinner and $55 for dinner with wine. 

Optional tour of the Garden  5:00 p.m.

No-host bar at Firehouse      5:30-6:30 p.m.

Dinner                        6:30 p.m.

Tickets available at Firehouse or by phone at 503-954-1702. 

FIELD TRIP!

Every couple of weeks the program coordinator for The Woodlawn Children's Garden, Mara Reynolds, and I touch base to see how things are going. Whether it's just a quick howdy or a sit down to discuss fundraising for the program, it's always a joy. A few weeks ago while spending a few moments planning the upcoming benefit dinner we both agreed it was time for the kids to take another field trip to the Firehouse. 

I can clearly remember the first field trip almost two years ago. It all started with a winding trail of children marching their way from the garden, through the neighborhood, and to the restaurant. In their arms were baskets of just picked goods from the garden and on their faces timid smiles, not quite sure what they were going to do with their bounty. Lucky for us, kids love firehouses, so they settled in with the ease that only little ones possess and any worry we had about making this a fun field trip quickly disappeared. That day we made a butternut squash tart, a few pizzas, and some beautiful salads, all with garden ingredients. Everyone helped and everyone ate.

So last week and the week before we held two more field trips, the first for some of the younger children and the second for some of the older (and not as easily impressed with my bad jokes) children. They brought herbs, zucchini, tomatoes, cucumber, farm fresh eggs and an appetite. We quickly made a menu and set out to work getting the food prepped for our lunch. Once done we set a long table and had a family-style feast that included a shaved summer squash salad with pecorino and almonds, egg pizzas, a tomato and egg tart, and steamed milk for dessert. It was beautiful, simple, and inspiring.

So I thought I'd share with you some of the smiles that come from days like this.

Summertime fun!

FOOD NEWS

As the season changes so does our approach to the menu. There are some things that will always be on the menu because that is the nature of our restaurant: we cook with wood fire, whether over the grill, in the pizza oven or on the rotisserie, so it's quite likely we'll be roasting chickens, grilling steaks and fish and using the pizza oven for more than just our Neapolitan pizze. But what does change quite often is what we serve with these items, and now, more than ever, changes are happening.

Here in the northwest the seasonal change from spring to summer is a little more obvious because the change in weather is relatively more pronounced than it is during other times in the year. Simply put, it's been HOT. So what we do is try to lighten things up a bit on the menu. Lately that has meant lots of beautiful heirloom lettuces from our garden, juicy tomatoes that are starting to make an appearance, squash blossoms, and some super sweet green beans from Mike Simington. 

Also, it's a time for Gretchen to play around with our dessert menu. Gone are the warm rhubarb crisps and chocolate budini and here are the fresh berries from Sauvie Island and various ices creams and semifreddi that help keep us cool after dinner. 

So yep, it's an exciting time of the year as we try to fit all that nature and our farmers have to offer onto the menu. Menu decisions are sometimes difficult, such as whether we have a fritto of squash blossoms or a fritto of green tomatoes on this week's menu (green tomatoes by the way) and sometimes the decisions are easy. For instance, sometime last winter JJ and I were finishing up a night's service and eating a dish of roasted rockfish and salmoriglio. It was real dang good, but we both remarked that summertime couldn't come soon enough as the salmoriglio would play very well with slices of fresh tomatoes and grilled fish. Usually my memory isn't the best, but I remembered that night clearly because the dish we imagined was so perfect. So it was the easiest decision in the world to pair some plump tomatoes with grilled Oregon albacore, salmoriglio and bread on this week's menu. 

It is now more than anytime during the year that nature and its harvest guide us as we create our menu, and for that, we thank you summer!

WINE NEWS

Our wine director Scott Frank recently returned from his honeymoon in Puglia with an intriguing thought: Why not direct the focus of the wine menu strictly to the wines of Southern Italy? It made so much sense! So many amazing small crop and biodynamic wines are now being produced in Campania, Puglia, Sicily, and Calabria that it was a no brainer to pursue this direction. We've already added a dozen new selections and we have more to come as we move through our inventory of Northern Italian and French wines. By the beginning of August the change should be complete (some selections from Oregon will be there as well!) and we're very thrilled to bring to you some great wines that you may otherwise not have the opportunity to enjoy. 

WOODLAWN COFFEE AND PASTRY

Many of you know that our beloved Pastry Chef Gretchen Glatte and I are teaming up to open Woodlawn Coffee and Pastry to better showcase Gretchen's talents. Well, that's one of the reasons...I've long suspected that she wanted to get out of the Firehouse kitchen and into our new one across the street because she long ago grew tired of my morning banter and forrays into the realm of idiocy. Whatever the case may be, we are very close to opening and she is getting her wish! This week we'll be tiling and installing sinks and then we start moving in equipment. The space is taking shape and looks amazing. Please stay posted as to the shop's happenings at www.woodlawncoffee.com.

News, menu, and the weather

Monday marked the beginning of summer and the end of what was an interminably long winter. Spring was in there somewhere, but unlike most years we really didn't get any of the sustained springtime sun that reassures us that summer really is on the way and everything is going to be okay. Instead we got rain mixed with rain, and some cold. 

So is it over? Judging by some of the produce that's becoming available I'd wager that it is. Strawberries have had a rough time with all of the rain, but they're becoming more abundant and are tasting beautiful. I had first of the season Washington cherries last week and they were plump and juicy with plenty of flavor. Just today I had the good fortune of spending some time with Mara Reynolds, coordinator of the Woodlawn Children's Garden, at the Firehouse and she was kind enough to share a few handfuls of raspberries from a bucket that she had picked earlier in the day. Raspberries! So yeah, summer is here...it's just deciding to sneak up on us.

Speaking of sneaking up...at the end of this month we will have been open for two years. We had planned to have another big open house fundraiser, this time to raise money for the Oregon Humane Society, but we've decided to postpone the event until the end of July/beginning of August. Between the unpredictable weather, JJ's upcoming wedding and honeymoon, and the work Gretchen and I are doing on Woodlawn Coffee and Pastry to get it up and running, we thought it would be best to hold off so we can dedicate the time and energy needed to make it a memorable party for all of us. Stay tuned though, we will definitely be raising money for the Oregon Humane Society soon!

Two years... Not sure where all of the time has gone, though I'm sure JJ would tell you that much of it was spent spinning over fifteen thousand pizza doughs. FIFTEEN THOUSAND! If you've never watched JJ work a pizza you really should spend a moment the next time you're in. He's smooth, real smooth. It's not the showy spin the dough in the air stuff that wows the kids, but rather it's a motion that is actually three motions in one and it's not easy...unless you're JJ. You would be hard pressed to find a pizzaiolo in Naples that can do it with so little effort and so much finesse. 

Other news at Firehouse includes more work being done on the building and in the gardens to get ready for summertime fun. Today I spanned wire across the patio that will hold the outdoor lights that should be arriving any day now. We finally got some tomatoes starts in the ground, thanks to the aforementioned Mara Reynolds. And last but not least, Woodlawn Coffee and Pastry is on its way to being open! Drywall will be finished this weekend and then we paint, install equipment and trim the space out. Finally!

Hope to see you soon!

Patio opening this Saturday, a few new wines, and more!

To say that we have been anxious to open our patio would be an understatement. Close to being duped a few weeks ago by Mother Nature, we have reluctantly held off as rain, rain, and more rain kept being forecasted. Well, it's time to roll the dice and we will be opening our patio this coming Saturday. Later than we had expected for sure, but in plenty of time to see the lavender bloom, some apples grow, and enjoy a few new beer and wine selections.

Two new bottles of wine will be on our list this week, both from the Loire Valley, while we have also added a new red glass pour from Italy's Trentino/Alto Adige region.

The Loire selections are: the 2007 Chenin Blanc from Savennieres and the Chateau d'Epire estate, and will surely pair well with all of our small plates, the iron skillet mussels, pizzas, and especially the rotisserie chicken and beautiful rock fish we have coming in this week. Also, a 2008 Cabernet Franc from Chinon made by the Bretons that is made for the pizzas, hanger steak and meatballs. The glass pour, a 2006 Santa Maddalena by Muri-Gries, is full bodied, very aromatic and a joy to drink...so drink!

A couple of new beer selections will also make their way to our list as well. We are so proud to be serving Heater Allen's Pilsner and Schwarz beers from our taps and this weekend we will be replacing the Schwarz with their Isarweizen. Clean and crisp, this will certainly be a great summer beer. Also on tap already is Double Mountain's Hop Lava IPA. And there is more tap news: with a little custom work in the next couple of weeks we will be adding two more taps. We have some ideas of what we want to roll out first, but feel free to share with us your ideas as well.

Surely we can all agree that there hasn't been enough sunshine lately, but tell that to our lettuces growing out back! Our two beds are ready to be harvested and this week we will be adding our garden lettuces to our menu. There are a few heirloom romaines and some butterhead lettuces that are beautifully delicate and a total pleasure to eat. Also, our favorite farmer Mike Simington is bringing some baby chioga beets for us to play around with AND morels are being wood oven roasted and served with English peas with the house-made semolina gnocchi. Spring is finally making its long overdue appearance and we will make the most of it while we can!

Other news? Our two year anniversary is coming up at the end of June and we plan on celebrating in true Firehouse fashion--with plenty of wine and food! This year's Anniversary Open House will be held Sunday, June 27th and this time around we are raising money for the Oregon Humane Society. Live music, beer, wine and of course complimentary food will make this a day to remember, so please join us in raising money for OHS. We will have complete details on next week's Home Page. The last two Open House events have been absolutley wonderful and these charitable parties are the highlights of the Firehouse calendar.

Welcome back to our website!

The last two months have been more than a little eventful here at Firehouse. With a myriad of fundraisers, special events, some updates to the restaurant's interior, and the transition to sole ownership of Firehouse, we have been busy, busy, busy. 

With the great many changes that we have undergone these last two months Elizabeth and I would like to take a moment to thank the folks that have made this transition seamless and thoroughly enjoyable. First and foremost, our staff. Loyal, patient and crazy enough to take this ride with us, our staff has become like family over the last two years. So Amy, Jesse, Kevin, Captain JJ, Lil' Connor, Steven, Kiri, and our beloved daytime kitchen matriarch Gretchen, thanks to all of you from the bottom of our hearts.

Also, a special thanks to Blythe Woodward. You have been integral in reshaping the beauty of Firehouse. From our new and improved menu and special event graphics to the little touches that are in the works to make Firehouse even more beautiful, comfortable and warm, you are a study in good taste. 

And Jen Coughlin...you are the queen of the Woodlawn Neighborhood, working tirelessly to help transform our area into something special. Thanks so much for being such a proponent of Woodlawn, your loyal patronage, and hard work promoting Firehouse and our fundraisers.

It is now, with great anticipation, that we introduce our new website. We hope that it serves you well. We will be using the Home Page as a forum to keep visitors updated on seasonal changes in the menus, wine news, recipes, and general interest news items that we hope you will enjoy.

Warmest regards, 

Matthew and Elizabeth Busetto