Goodbye Lloyd Center! Goodbye!

August 8th, 2026, is the last day the Portland Lloyd Center Mall will be open, and Hank and I have plans to hang out all day.

We both love the old mall, and we’ve been going there since he was in my belly. The Lloyd Center is within walking distance of Outlet, and when I was pregnant, I made a habit of walking over, getting a green Jamba Juice (when I was pregnant, I could have as many green Jamba Juices as I wanted), taking a couple of laps around the mall, and then walking back to Outlet.

During the early days of the pandemic, the mall became a safe, quiet space for toddler Hank to run around when it was raining or too cold for the playground. We would hop on the MAX from our apartment and spend the afternoon there.

We soon fell into a ritual: lunch of soft pretzels (and sometimes hot dog pretzel bites), always with cream cheese dip and two lemonades, followed by checking in on the vending machines, the video games, the escalators, and counting the stairs of the grand staircase (89 steps).

Over the years, we kept going. The mall got quieter and emptier, Hank got taller, and somehow it became one of those places that marks time for us.

So on Saturday, we’re going back one more time. We’ll get our pretzels, check on the vending machines, ride the escalators, count all 89 stairs, and say goodbye to our weird old mall.

I am writing this upstairs at Outlet as my friend Lizy is downstairs getting the space ready for year four of the summer Future Fonts and Friends FONT PARTY that we throw every first weekend of August to celebrate TypeCon here in Portland. The courtyard will have airbrushing, sign painting, podcasting, hand-lettering, and inside Outlet I will be cracking beers and living my fantasy of owning a bar. Leland will be live printing Proof of Purchase (we are making 500 copies of this OMG!). The wildfire smoke has cleared out, and we should have a gorgeous summer night.

July was a lot, and August is already a lot, but tonight I am just really excited to be here.