SeeingGreen ™

Last year I was searching for a replacement gasket for a canning jar I use to store coffee. In earnest, I visited all the various kitchen supply stores in Portland, from the upmarket Sur La Table to the locally owned Kitchen Kaboodle. No luck. Finally, I saw an ad in the Chinook Book for Mirador, a natural products store featuring kitchen and canning supplies. Bingo. Not only did Mirador have everything you need to safely squirrel your summer harvest away for the winter, but also a great inventory of recycled-content gifts, cookbooks and things you set afire to make your home smell good.

Mirador is a landmark on Division Street’s notorious grid-correcting and traffic confounding “Seven Corners.” (Just try to cross the intersections on a bike some time and you’ll know what I mean.) The store’s colorful exterior and weather-shielded cob bench encourages visitors to linger, while the well-stocked shelves awaken your shopping instinct. In addition to buying my admittedly boring, yet necessary rubber gasket, I also picked up a little gift for a co-worker (Resource Revival’s bike chain bottle opener), a package of incense and a stainless steel dish drainer to replace my rusting plastic coated relic.

For some reason I left Mirador thinking of our city’s past, where perhaps there would be a store like this is every neighborhood. On the same street in my historic city there would be a green grocer, a small hardware store, a bakery and several repair shops (at least one for shoes, electronics, bicycles and other things that tend to break down now and again). Oh wait, on further examination, Division Street boasts all those amenities and then some. I guess Mirador, which in Spanish means “viewpoint,” is indeed a good place to start seeing green.

Mirador Community Store
2106 SE Division Street
Portland, Oregon 97202
Monday - Saturday 10:00 – 6:00
Sunday 11:00 – 5:00