Portland’s James Beard Award-winning Jinju Patisserie to close in 9 days, seek new home
Jinju Patisserie, the North Portland pastry and bonbon shop that won a James Beard award as America’s most outstanding bakery earlier this year, will close after service on Sunday, Dec. 28, and seek a new space.
“We have been so fortunate to accomplish our goals beyond our expectations over the past six years,” the shop’s owners wrote on social media, “now it’s time for a new chapter.”
After training in pastry at several high-end Las Vegas resorts, Jin Caldwell and Kyurim Lee opened Jinju in a small North Williams Avenue shop in 2019, its pastry cases filled each morning with crackling croissants and beautiful bonbons.
At the 2025 James Beard Awards ceremony in Chicago, Jinju was named America’s most outstanding bakery, a rare win in a national category for Portland at the so-called “Oscars of the Food World.”
According to Caldwell and Lee, the search for a new home has been going on for “quite some time,” with the duo nearly signing “a seven-year lease on a state-of-the-art facility.”
“Uncertainty around the economy, our health and the steep financial obligations made us reconsider such a significant commitment,” the couple wrote.
Caldwell and Lee are searching for a new home for the bakery, either “a second-generation bakery/restaurant in East Portland, or other retail space that could be modified into a bakery, or even an older home that could be used as a micro bakery.”
Jinju Patisserie will close on Sunday, Dec. 28, at 4063 N. Williams Ave., 503-828-7728, jinjupatisserie.com.
