[ Family Supper ]
At Poa,
Food As Good
As The Playroom
BY JULIA SILVERMAN
I
n the nearly six years since our twins were born, our family
has made the rounds of kid-friendly restaurants in this
town. If there’s a play area, or just even a bucketful of toys
somewhere stashed away, if there’s a kids’ menu, or crayons
and a coloring page available, if there’s a stack of high chairs
in the corner, we’ve probably been there, done that and made
our apologies on the way out for the inevitable mess under the
kids’ chairs.
And so I’d like to think that I can speak with a certain
amount of authority when I say that the kids’ play area at Poa
Cafe, newly opened at the far end of a bustling stretch of North
Williams Street is among the very most thoughtfully designed
and well-appointed restaurant playspaces in town.
For starters, it’s huge, making it much less likely that your
toddler will get trampled by some third-grade ringer. For
another, the owners clearly gave some thought to kids of all
different ages — for grade-schoolers and up, there’s a massive
chalkboard wall, a shelf of books and games, and even a row of
standalone keyboards on which to bang. (The restaurant’s blog
says iPads are coming soon — a first for a PDX-area restaurant,
as far as I know. I’ll be watching to see how that