One Building on NW 21st Is Splitting Its Day at 4 p.m.

"There's just not a place that we can walk to for everyday food that's not crazy expensive," BJ Smith told Bridgetown Bites in April. He lives up the street from 305 NW 21st Avenue with his wife. The building sits at the corner of NW 21st and Everett, and Smith opened his restaurant there. A few doors down the same frontage, a Brazilian cafe is finishing its buildout. Its owners went through almost a year of looking at spaces before they came back to this one for nearly the same reason.

Together, the two tenants are turning a building that sat partly empty for years into something closer to an all-day address. Their schedules are set up to meet in the middle of the afternoon.

A Corner That Had Gone Quiet

Long-time Northwest residents may remember the corner suite as Cha! Cha! Cha!, the local Mexican chain. Choice of India followed it, and Bridgetown Bites reported that the restaurant appears to have closed in 2022. The writer didn't think the space had been used since. Further back along 21st, between Everett and Glisan, the bar Lightning Will's occupied the building's largest space. Willamette Week was writing about Lightning Will's at this address as far back as 2015.

So for most of the past few years, a building with several storefronts on one of the district's main commercial streets had at least one large suite going unused. The 2026 tenants are filling those gaps one suite at a time.

Say When Took the Big Room and the Evening Shift

Say When opened April 20, 2026, in the former Lightning Will's space and held its official grand opening June 6 after a soft-opening period. The owners are Smith, a Top Chef alum, plus Paul Francis and Robert Thomas. Thomas ran Swift Lounge on NE Broadway for years, and Francis was his bar manager there for about a decade.

Smith calls the food "blue collar French," everyday brasserie cooking rather than birthday-dinner cooking. The opening menu included French onion soup, a burger, oysters, chicken liver pâté, and salmon rillettes. Earlier, Smith had described croque-monsieur, croque madame, cassoulet, and pommes frites to the Northwest Examiner.

The sourcing is local. The bread comes from Ken's Artisan Bakery, which the Examiner described as being across the street. The meat comes from Revel Meat Co.'s plant in Canby. Oysters come straight from a producer in Puget Sound. Smith says buying direct is part of how he keeps prices down.

Smith said the room is about 4,400 square feet, the largest space in the building. The front holds roughly 100 feet of bar and restaurant. The back is a lounge with two pool tables and seven pinball machines, which Smith's partner described as "your cool uncle's basement." Minors are welcome until 9 p.m., unlike at Sit Tite, his 21-and-over spot on North Interstate. The drinks list has a nonalcoholic section, including a faux Negroni and a "Nojito." Neither Smith nor his wife drinks.

The important detail for the rest of the building is when the doors open. Say When starts service at 4 p.m. Smith said lunch or brunch might come later, once the team saw what worked. Its online ordering hours still start at 4 p.m., and we found no announcement of daytime service.

Bossa Is Taking the Corner and the Morning

That leaves the daylight hours to Bossa, which is renovating the old Cha! Cha! Cha! corner. Owners Emanuelle and Tilion Lieberman started as a specialty coffee roaster. Their beans come from Fazendas Dutra, a farm in the Matas de Minas region of Minas Gerais, Brazil. They sell two roasts, Aurora and Carinho, in 12-ounce bags for $24.

During the day, the menu plans call for pão de queijo, tapioca crepes, coxinha, pastels, açaí, and sandwiches on pão francês rolls. Later in the day, the planned menu shifts to caipirinhas, batidas, and an espresso martini, plus steak skewers called espetinho de carne and grilled cheese skewers. The owners also hope to serve feijoada on weekends. Seasonal produce is planned from The Side Yard Farm in Cully.

The suite is about 3,000 square feet including the patio, and CR Bennett Construction is handling the renovation. The red-painted, exposed-timber ceiling is staying, and the patio will be repainted to match it.

The Liebermans almost ended up somewhere else. An earlier buildout fell through because of zoning, so they ran pop-ups at Sunblossom Farm, the design studio landd, and the Brazilian Block Party at Allgood Brewing instead. The NW 21st space was among the first they toured in spring 2025, and at first they ruled it out as too big and too expensive. Emanuelle Lieberman explained why they came back:

"We need a space that's going to function well as a coffee shop and be on a street where there's a lot of good foot traffic... And being on the kind of street that is going to allow us to do the nightlife stuff that we want to do, and not be disruptive to a small neighborhood."

Smith said much the same in spring, from the other end of the building. He called himself and his family the target customers, along with other families who live nearby and service-industry workers coming off shift. Two operators with different cuisines, different backgrounds, and different hours both chose this building because NW 21st can handle walk-in traffic at both ends of the day.

How the Building's Day Would Fit Together

Once Bossa opens on its planned schedule, the two businesses barely overlap. Bossa's hours below come from August reporting, and the owners said in Rose City Beat that the schedule and liquor license were still being finalized. Say When's hours are the ones Axios reported in May.

From Monday through Wednesday, the building would hand off from coffee to dinner at 4 p.m. From Thursday through Sunday, both suites would be serving at night, with Bossa bringing in Brazilian DJs and working with local and Latin artists. On a planned Saturday, the building's lights would be on from 7 a.m. until after 2 a.m.

What's Still Unconfirmed as of October 1

The building isn't finished yet. Bossa's website still says "opening soon." Eater Portland's fall preview from September 14 lists Bossa only as an October opening. The owners had hoped to open in August, but the buildout took longer than expected. A few other details are still open:

• Bossa's opening day. Mid-October is the target, but the owners haven't announced a specific date.
• Bossa's late-night hours. The 2:30 a.m. weekend close depends on the liquor license.
• Daytime service at Say When. Lunch or brunch was described as a possibility, and no launch has been reported.
• Say When's closing time. Its online ordering ends before 11 p.m. on weeknights. That doesn't necessarily mean the bar closes earlier than the midnight and 2 a.m. hours reported in the spring.

Until Bossa opens, the corner suite at NW 21st and Everett is still under construction. Ken's Artisan Bakery, across the street, already supplies Say When's bread, so even before Bossa's opening, the evening half of the building runs partly on a business from the same block.

Shannon Janssen follows how changes like these, a suite filling in or a corner taking on longer hours, affect the blocks around them across Northwest Portland. If you're thinking through what this corner of NW 21st means for a home nearby, whether you're staying or preparing to sell, Let's Connect.