Meat skewers and other dishes on a table at Afuri Izakaya in Beaverton.Mark Graves/The Oregonian

As the second biggest city in Oregon’s most diverse county, Beaverton has long been a destination for those craving fluffy Persian rice, late-night Korean pub food or goblets of Puerto Rican mofongo. But something has changed. Fueled by generous city grants and increased interest from Portland restaurateurs, Beaverton has added dozens of new restaurants and bars since 2017, a stratospheric rise barely slowed by the pandemic.

If you haven’t been to Central Beaverton lately, a return visit can be head-spinning. The once sleepy downtown, cleaved by a pair of busy state highways, with established restaurants such as Nak Won and Decarli (moving to new digs on Hall Boulevard this spring), has added new cafes (Milk+T, Lionheart), beer bars (Raindrop, Ex Novo, Loyal Legion) and outposts of well-known Portland restaurants (Big’s Chicken, Top Burmese, Afuri, Sizzle Pie, The Sudra, Matt’s BBQ). In 2020, a stretch of Southwest First Street fronted by five mostly new food businesses was closed to cars — firepit tables, stump chairs and a small covered playground sprouted up in the makeshift pedestrian plaza. Everywhere you look, people seem to be having fun.

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