Pied Cow Coffeehouse facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Pied Cow Coffeehouse
The restaurant's exterior in 2012
Restaurant information
Current owner(s)	Jimmy Chen
Street address	3244 SE Belmont Street
City	Portland
County	Multnomah
State	Oregon
Postal/ZIP code	97214
Country	United States
Coordinates	45°30′59″N 122°37′53″W / 45.51636°N 122.63138°W / 45.51636; -122.63138

The Pied Cow Coffeehouse, or simply the Pied Cow, is a coffeehouse and hookah lounge in Portland, Oregon's Sunnyside neighborhood, in the United States. The restaurant has an "eclectic" interior decor and, in addition to coffee drinks and hookah, serves fondue, desserts, mezze platters, and wine. It is known for being reportedly haunted by a woman named Lydia and has received generally positive reviews. The Pied Cow appears in Robyn Miller's 2013 film The Immortal Augustus Gladstone, which also featured a cameo appearance by restaurant owner Jimmy Chen, and on the artwork for Kyle Craft's 2018 album Full Circle Nightmare.

Description

Interior seating, 2013

The Pied Cow is a coffeehouse and hookah lounge along Belmont Street, housed in a reportedly haunted Victorian house in southeast Portland's Sunnyside neighborhood. The menu includes coffee-based drinks, cheese fondue, mezze platters, hummus, desserts, beer, wine, tea, and hookah. Menus display quotes by Friedrich Nietzsche. The interior is "eclectically decorated" and has a "cluttered altar dedicated to everyone from Nick Cave to Buddha". Dylan Jefferies and Delaney White of the Daily Vanguard called the Pied Cow "whimsical", writing that "numerous Victorian paintings and eclectic items adorn the walls, and a staircase is built up like a kind of altar, with various flowers, silks and dolls ornamenting every step".

According to Thrillist, the restaurant's patio is covered during winter months and the lawn is used during the summer months. The exterior has tall hedges and trees, as well as benches, plastic chairs, and "mismatched" lawn furniture. The large white tent used for outdoor dining is illuminated by heat lamps and Christmas lights. In 2014, a writer for The Columbian said the Pied Cow has a "varied clientele". In 2012, Willamette Week's John Locanthi said the establishment did not serve people under the age of 21. In contrast, in 2019 the paper said, "Anyone who grew up in Portland, especially in Southeast, knows the Pied Cow as a place to go to before turning 21."

History

Before the Pied Cow, the house was occupied by a "lively" restaurant called Buttertoes. The restaurant was opened by three sisters in 1979 and continued operating into the early 1990s. The walls had murals of fairies and mermaids. In 1996, Jennifer "Jenny" Joyce painted Keep on the Sunnyside, a ten-panel mural celebrating the "history and character" of the neighborhood, along SE 30th Avenue at Belmont. One of the panels depicts the house and the Thaddeus Fisher House. Faded over time by multiple cleanings and neglect, the mural was repainted by the Portland Street Art Alliance, which supports muralists and other street artists, with Joyce's permission in 2018.

Robyn Miller's 2013 mockumentary film The Immortal Augustus Gladstone about a "150-year-old epileptic vampire with gay tendencies" was set in Portland and filed in part at the Pied Cow. The restaurant's owner, Jimmy Chen, made a cameo appearance. Described as "strangely poetic" by The Washington Post, the film won Best Picture at the Oregon Independent Film Festival. The photograph used as artwork for Kyle Craft's 2018 album Full Circle Nightmare was taken at the Pied Cow. Additionally, the restaurant served as a set for the music video to Craft's song "Heartbreak Junky".

Reported haunting

Interior altar, 2013

The building, which has housed Buttertoes and the Pied Cow, is reportedly haunted by a "kind and gentle" woman named Lydia, who "made items fall off shelves in the kitchen on a regular basis". In 2017, The Oregonian's Grant Butler said the house "looks like the perfect setting for a ghost story" and wrote, "What gained [Buttertoes] notoriety was its reputation for being haunted by a ghost named Aunt Lydia." Jefferies and White described the apparition in more detail:

The Ghost of Aunt Lydia, as she is known, is reportedly a friendly and gracious ghost. She is known to be seen with her hair pinned up, wearing black boots and a high-collared dress... Aunt Lydia would often rearrange table settings and move things in the kitchen.

The owners of Buttertoes hired a psychic who determined there was "a spirit was present in the home". A waitress reportedly resigned from the restaurant "after feeling so uncomfortable while closing by herself", according to Jefferies and White. In 2009, a server who had worked for Pied Cow for three years described a sink where she had felt "creeped out". In 2013, employee Zachary Schauer recalled seeing Lydia after a long shift.

In a 2009 overview of Portland's reportedly haunted sites, Chen "declined to comment on the restaurant's alleged haunting. But in the kitchen, the wait staff buzzes with talk of the creepy basement." Jefferies and White said the Pied Cow "certainly plays up the haunted vibe" and wrote in 2019, "Many believe that the Ghost of Aunt Lydia still haunts the quirky Victorian house, and patrons of the Pied Cow still keep an eye out for her while sipping mint tea and smoking ornate hookahs."