Wax
Since I'm not getting paid, I'm going to write a shamelessly incomplete, unprofessional review, and without doing my homework to see what other urban honkers may have already said.
So, this place Wax, it's pretty cool. It's on Interstate. It's open till 2 p.m. for breakfast and stuff. I was skeptical at first because it seemed like a bunch of hipsters trying to be "down" and consequently aiding gentrification. Then I started gentrifying North Portland myself and stopped caring about that, then I learned that the place serves milkshakes and has free wifi, but I still just rode my bike past every day without going in. Then one day I was like, "I'm hungry and I need to use the internet!"
Wax has good pancakes. Wax has a big, cool interior with some modern elements and some old, funky elements and some hip hop elements and some warehouse elements, and it reminds me of Oakland. Wax reminds me alot of Yo Mama's Cafe which used to be in Rockridge but not anymore. The really great thing about Wax is there are hardly any people there so it isn't an annoying place to eat. Elisabeth says they have really good milkshakes. I will go there someday and have a milkshake. I really like milkshakes.
wax was originally suppose to be an all ages hip hop club. i read about in the tribune. apparently it got shut down as a venue as they have no parking lot so people were parking in the neighborhood and got lots of complaints. so they have had to reinvent themselves. i think they still have breakdancing there.
I tried to go to Wax yesterday, because I heard the Dawg House (not the one from E. Burnside, but one that was briefly on Williams) moved into Wax, but they were closed (this was at like 330pm) so we went to Fire on the Mountain a hippieish restaurent that specializes in Hot Wings. It was good, and we ate a fried twinkee. Then we passed Wax and on way home and they were open. Weird.