A Portland Boathouse Is Reopening As a Kid-Friendly Destination for Fish Sandwiches

A year-round indoor and outdoor restaurant on Hayden Island is set to open in less than a month. Pal’s will open in early July with all day, seven days a week service. Donald Kenney, raised in Oregon and one of the partners behind the project, is one of the minds behind the buildout and the menu. Hayden Island sits in the Columbia River as a natural divider between Washington and Oregon states.

In the mornings from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. it’ll be coffee and pastries, with grab-and-go items meant to provide what a grocery store might. Then a lunch and dinner-focused menu will be on throughout the afternoon until 10 p.m. This will be the only upscale outdoor restaurant on the island of about 4,000 people, including the houseboat residents.

That menu is seafood-forward as can be. There’ll be Oregon albacore tuna salad, oversized fish sandwiches with the goods spilling out the side, and Oregon’s own Bay shrimp on a local rendition of a lobster roll. The fish comes breaded in panko and dusted in kettle chips, shoved between those comically tiny buns. Dungeness crab should make an appearance when it’s in season. There’s soft serve on deck, too.

Fellow business partner and cocktail wiz Sean Ford is behind the no-joke drinks program. He’s got his own cocktail syrups company, was the Teardrop general manager, and is part-owner of various bars. He’s rolling out classics including the Dark and Stormy alongside more inventive beverages like a Banoffee Bahama Mama riff served with Hamilton dark rum, banana liqueur, a shot of soft serve, and a spoon.

For his part, Kenney helped open the lakeside resort the Suttle Lake Lodge & Boathouse in Sisters back in 2015. The resort and restaurant sits by the 380-acre Suttle Lake in the Deschutes National Forest. The idea was to bring an egalitarian and approachable food option that kids would remember stopping at once they’re older. Much of that same energy is brought to Pal’s by Kenney and his team. The vibe is going for somewhere between the original Dairy Queens and Maine’s classic Bagaduce Lunch.

He’s got the opportunity thanks to a friend who owns the Pal’s space asked him if he’d be able to run that Suttle Lodge playbook on Hayden Island. The space is a some 40-year-old leasing office in the marina. The building and grounds are getting a facelift into a big lawn with space for kids and families to sit and enjoy the food. Kenney got this idea from his experiences working in Austin, Texas’s where he says it’s much more common for wide open private spaces that are attached to a restaurant. Pistils Nursery is helping design the buildout and provide plant life.

The hope is for families to come here again and again, to spend warm days down by the water eating soft serve late into the night.“I see the kids running around throwing food for the geese to eat,” Kenney says, “and people pulling their boats up for a bite to eat.”

Pal’s (515 NE Tomahawk Island Drive, Portland) will open in early July. Opening hours are 7 a.m. to to 10 p.m. everyday.