Pix Patisserie threw one heck of a party.
I arrived in Portland too late for the earliest days of Pix — the Portland Farmers Market stand launched in 2001, the Division Street location two years later, with an assist from “business partners Visa, MasterCard and Discover,” as owner Cheryl Wakerhauser recalled in a recent email announcing her upcoming retirement from the restaurant industry.
But I was there for the old North Williams Avenue location and its annual Bastille Day celebrations, known for their street-sabered sparkling wine, human-sized tower of sticky-sweet pastry puffs and raucous live music from bands you likely bought coffee from or played basketball with.
And I was there for the consolidation, when the two Pix locations contracted into a red building backed by an Osborne bull, a new home for the bakery’s pastries, Spanish-inspired tapas, one of the world’s best Champagne selections (seriously) and a lively events schedule all its own.
Wakerhauser, who studied at a serious pastry shop in southern France, will retire before the end of August, giving you around 50 days to enjoy Pix and its summer slate of movies (the final film, to be aired at dusk on Aug. 25, offers a chance to watch “Amelie” while eating one of Wakerhauser’s own Amelie pastries, with glazed chocolate mousse, caramelized hazelnut pastries and an orange-vanilla crème brûlée).
After traveling the world, Wakerhauser plans to open “a cooking school focused on French pastry for both single day recreational classes and series classes for those interested in pursuing French pastry as a professional career.” The Pix kitchen will remain open for special orders, and to stock the 24-hour Pix-O-Matic vending machines, a popular pandemic addition that will carry on.
Visit Pix Patisserie between now and Aug. 22 at 2225 E. Burnside St.
— Michael Russell, mrussell@oregonian.com @tdmrussell