Fried chicken tacos, Chicago-style party wings, and chicken-and-chanterelle wontons are all landing on Portland plates for $10 apiece as the second annual PDX Fried Chicken Week kicks off Monday, running from September 14 through September 20, 2026. More than 40 businesses across the city are participating, according to organizer Linneas Boland-Godbey, turning the week into one of Portland's biggest coordinated food promotions of the fall.
The event is organized by The Actual Portland, the directory-style platform Boland-Godbey founded in 2024, and as reported by KOIN.com, the group bills itself as a tourist guide built around local dining discoveries. Before launching that platform, Boland-Godbey was known in Portland as a photographer who organized art therapy workshops for social justice activists back in September 2020, according to Willamette Week. The Actual Portland was designed specifically to spotlight local voices and small businesses that traditional city tourist guides tend to overlook, per Courtney Ahn Design, which developed the platform as a pro bono creative project.
What's on the Menu This Year
The lineup ranges from familiar comfort food to inventive twists. Kau Kau is serving crispy ginger chicken, the station's report on the event notes, while The Rambler offers a fried chicken sandwich and Tacos Fita Co. brings a fried chicken taco to the crawl. Gin Thai Brasserie is contributing a spicy fried chicken curry, and Chubby Bunny has a vegan option on the menu, per the same account. Not every dish involves bone-in chicken — participating businesses have flexibility in how they interpret the fried chicken theme.
Salvi PDX is offering a gluten-free option: fried chicken smothered in a 75-year-old family mole recipe built from roasted chiles, warm spices, seeds, nuts, and chocolate, according to The Actual Portland. Over at Lariat Lounge, the $10 dish known as the Alabama Hot Mess piles crispy fried chicken over mashed potatoes with melted cheese, roasted corn, jalapeños, and Alabama white sauce, the same event listing shows.
A Decade of Wontons and a Chicago Comeback
Mama Chow's Kitchen is serving fried wontons filled with chicken and chanterelle mushrooms for the week. Founder Jeff Chow first launched his Chinese-style food cart in downtown Portland in 2014 before relocating to Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard, building a loyal following around his wonton soups and garlic noodles, according to Willamette Week. Hoodline previously reported that Mama Chow's temporarily closed in 2024 while Chow recovered from a serious hiking accident.
LoRell's Chicken Shack is bringing its Chicago-style party wings, drizzled in hot honey or “G sauce” and finished with golden lemon pepper seasoning, according to Postcard. Owner Darell Preston relocated the operation from a Southeast Foster Road food cart to a permanent spot inside the Lloyd Center food court. Hoodline also previously covered the case of a Portland man who admitted guilt in a bias attack targeting Preston.
Part of a Growing Food-Week Tradition
Restaurants that want in on this year's event need to sign up by this coming Sunday, per Boland-Godbey. “It's a great showcase of fried chicken culture here in Portland,” Boland-Godbey said, describing the week's purpose. The Actual Portland has previously run PDX Curry Week and PDX Taco Week, and organizers plan to launch a week dedicated to mac and cheese later this year.
PDX Fried Chicken Week also lands just ahead of the Portland Mercury's own Wing Week, which the outlet reported on September 10, 2026 will run from September 21 to September 27 across more than 100 bars and restaurants offering $10 wing specials. Together, the two events stack up to roughly two straight weeks of discounted chicken promotions citywide. The Mercury's food-week calendar already included Pizza Week in April 2026 and Burger Week in August 2026, both using digital passes and fixed pricing to steer diners around Portland's neighborhoods.
Travel Portland has regularly sponsored digital passes and interactive maps for these themed weeks, encouraging both residents and visitors to plan multi-stop food crawls across the city's quadrants, according to the Mercury. That kind of targeted promotion matters for an industry with real economic weight: Oregon's leisure and hospitality workforce topped 208,700 employees and generated more than $13.8 billion in annual sales statewide as of December 2023, per figures from the Oregon Employment Department relayed by the Oregon Business Report. For independent vendors like Mama Chow's and LoRell's, a themed week with a built-in audience and a flat $10 price point offers a concrete boost — one plate of wontons or wings at a time.
