A century-old building on Troutdale's main drag is about to reopen as something new: Hotel Reynard, an eight-room hotel stacked above a 60-seat tavern, with rooms starting at $180 a night and a kitchen leaning hard into Oregon produce and seafood. The hotel and its main-floor restaurant are set to open starting Tuesday, Nov. 3, with daily lunch and dinner service running from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
The project is the work of Donald Kenney, a co-founder of hospitality company The Mighty Union, along with partners Sean Hoard and Brandon Bowden, according to The Oregonian/OregonLive. Kenney previously co-founded The Suttle Lodge near Sisters and Pal's, the Hayden Island snack bar, and The Mighty Union has also opened taverns and hotels including the Carpenter Hotel in Austin. Kenney told the outlet the small scale was intentional, noting the hotel has eight rooms and does not need to sell 90 keys to make the business work.
Hotel Reynard sits at 302 E. Historic Columbia River Highway, in a building constructed as a hotel in 1926, the year after a devastating fire tore through Troutdale. For more than 20 years the space was home to Taste of Village, a restaurant that occupied the building before Kenney's team took it over, per the same OregonLive report. Kenney said a mirror inside the new space was salvaged from that prior restaurant, a nod to the building's long run in town.
Eight Rooms, a Tavern and a Patio Built for Spring
Each of Hotel Reynard's eight guest rooms comes with a king-size bed and its own bathroom, according to hotelreynard.com, which describes the rooms as featuring good linens and generously sized bathrooms. Downstairs, the ground-floor restaurant and bar is built to serve locals, travelers and hotel guests alike, the hotel's website notes. The main floor includes a 60-seat bar and dining room plus a 40-seat patio with a cabana bar, which the team plans to surround with climbing hydrangeas and other plants by spring.
Design work came from Eric Cheong of North 45 Projects, with curtains and other soft goods made by Britt Howard and artwork from Jess Ackerman, Jeremy Okai Davis and Gabi Villaseñor rounding out the interior. The hotel's name nods to Reynard the Fox, a character from medieval French literature who later directly inspired Disney's 1973 animated Robin Hood. Guests or diners with questions can reach the hotel at 503-755-5302.
A Seasonal Menu Built on Local Farms
Chef Bill Wallender is running the kitchen, with Anna-Lisa Chacón serving as general manager, per the same OregonLive account. Wallender said he prefers sourcing from nearby farms rather than making an impromptu run to the supermarket or a farmers market, a philosophy reflected in a seasonal, ingredient-driven menu that includes Pacific Northwest oysters, chanterelle toast, corn crumpets, charcoal-cooked trout, roast chicken, a steak sandwich and chicory salad. That local-sourcing approach lines up with the hotel's own description of its menu, which the hotel's website says showcases the best of Oregon's vegetables, fruits and seafood as it changes with the seasons.
One supplier is Mora Mora Farms, run by Catherine Nguyen in Troutdale, which provided 26 pounds of green cherry tomatoes for pickling, enough, per the OregonLive report, to stock roughly 900 martinis. The bar program includes Infante and Fox River cocktails, Bloody Marys, Pimm's Cups and a Corpse Reviver No. Blue, alongside Guinness, a house pale lager and a West Coast IPA from Commensal Fermentation. The hotel's own site separately describes its bar as serving classic cocktails alongside a concise list of wine, beer and spirits.
Troutdale's Growing Food and Drink Scene
Hotel Reynard lands in a town already building something of a dining identity east of Portland. It sits about a half mile from Sugarpine Drive-In, which has drawn crowds since 2018, and not far from Good Coffee's 10,000-square-foot cafe and roastery built in 2021, plus Wayfinder Beer's two-story taproom and cart pod added in 2024. Troutdale, known as the gateway to the Gorge, has leaned into that identity as more visitors pass through on their way east.
The Mighty Union's broader portfolio offers a sense of what Hotel Reynard might become. The company describes its Suttle Lake property as combining booze, food, nature and a comfy bed, and its Carpenter Hotel in Austin — a collaboration with local developer John Davenport and design studio LAND, according to Texas Monthly — runs 93 rooms with a restaurant serving breakfast through dinner, a far larger operation than the eight-room Troutdale project. Pal's, the group's Hayden Island snack bar overlooking Tomahawk Bay Marina, took a different tack entirely, building out 250 outdoor seats and a multi-acre lawn designed by Pistils, as New School Beer reported after it opened. Hotel Reynard, by contrast, is staying small and local, with Kenney framing the modest room count as the point rather than a limitation.
