Portage Bay Goods

I dropped by here to grab a card and a silly little knick-​knack. This is probably the first modern little knick-​knack shop I ever went to, at an earlier location in the same neighborhood. It was interesting to return after all of these years, now that modern little knick-​knack shops are everywhere.
By modern little knick-​knack shop, I mean the ones that have stuff that makes you go «Oh, how cute» or «Oh, how funny» and are mostly drawing from a few wells – things with cats on them, or things with unicorns or zombies on them, or things that make jokes about T-​rex having short arms, or coasters picturing a happy-​looking idyllic 50’s housewife who is making a joke about vodka or about killing her husband… you know, that kind of stuff.
Seriously, people who design these sorts of things really need to get more creative and not just copy each other or ride the coattails of the flavor of the month right into the ground (yay, mixed metaphors).
I found a couple of things but it was more of a struggle than I expected, perhaps because my heart just wasn’t in it. The things in these stores are from such a narrow range of the pop culture/​humor spectrum that you almost ache to find something that just carries a simple sentiment.
Even so, I bought a magnet with a squid and a whale that made me think, «Oh, how cute! How funny!» So, I guess I’m hoisted by my own petard. Sigh. I also bought two cards that were far more mild mannered than the other thousand cards there.
I will say that they have quite a lot of kids stuff, but I’m a childless adult and I didn’t browse in that section.
The cashier was very gracious – she politely rang me up and didn’t react to my grumpy attitude. She deserves a raise.

Most of my birthday gifts for friends come from here. I can always count on a great array of fun and unique products often with a Seattle vibe. Always fun to shop or just look around!

Portage Bay is AWESOME! I always stop in whenever I am in Fremont, and I never leave without a smile on my face.

Everytime I have out of town visitors I bring them to Fremont and this shop is one of the stops on my «tour of Fremont». The gifts and things they have in the shop are super cute and funny and they have great Washington-​y stuff for my tourist friends. I love this place!

This shop always has a nice assortment of cute/​fun gifts and cards. It’s a fun place to visit if you are in the neighborhood.

This place is the best! It’s small but I easily spend over an hour here every time I visit. They have tons of small, unique gifts and a wide selection of awesome, local greeting cards. I want everything! The baby and kid side of the store is really great, too. Awesome, awesome, awesome. :)

What a cute little shop!
They have a great selection of cards for every occasion, which pretty much is where I get all my cards now. They have many from local artists, too, like the Oatmeal and much more!
The trinkets and doo-​dads are also pretty fun! Books, magnets, soap, art, you name it. Cute and unique gifts. The gift wrap selection is small, but interesting, and seems to rotate.
I love wandering through here, even if I don’t have a specific gift in mind.

This is the only place I go for cards now, I love the selection of funny, cute and sentimental.
My only compliant is the selection of gift wrap. For a store that refers to itself as «for the thoughtful procrastinator» they make it hard to wrap the gifts. I’m a big wine gifter and the wine bag selection is weak.

We happened to walk by this little gift shop on the way to dinner. They have an awesome selection of off-​beat humor greeting cards. We laughed our asses off!
I bought a small print of a robot cat eating the Space Needle.
Highly recommend this shop if you’re looking for an unique gift.

LOVE this shop! Great place to kill time in Fremont and, as their tagline suggests, it is a great place for last minute gifts. Their card selection is THE BEST in the area and they have so many fun little things. I always come for the baby onesies for gifts. A huge bonus is that if you sign up for their mailing list, they send you a 20% coupon off your entire purchase EVERY MONTH! I use mine almost every month getting all the birthday cards I need for that month and usually something fun for myself. This is also a really fun place to take tourists looking for some fun, unique, and locally made Seattle souvenirs! They have a great selection of baby and kid toys, too, if you’re looking for unique kid gifts.

Soooooooooo cute! If I had a baby explosion from my tummy this is the first store I will go to and buy baby clothes, toys, dolls and books. A lot of the items in the store were unique items that I haven’t seen before. It was fun, colorful and full of life.
Don’t have babies yet? No worries, they have jewelry, stickers, pins and fun Seattle gadgets that make fun souvenirs or gifts.
Definitely a cute store to check out :)

Music: None
Layout: Organized, very colorful and charming. Brings out the inner adult in one.
Price: $$, some things are hit and miss on the price range.
Customer Service: 5 out of 5
I bought 2 line ups from This Chaming, gourmet flavors at $ 2.50 which was extremely pricey, however, good lollies. I haven’t seen these lollies since the convention back in Vancouver.

I’ve lived in Fremont for awhile now and really haven’t been into any of the shops in town, shame on me for not doing so as I know they have some really interesting items to offer. Portage Bay Goods is a unique little gift store, I came in with a friend who was looking for a gift for her assistant, we ended up spending a little more time in here as we had so much fun looking at all the little trinkets and knick-​knacks they had all around the store. They offer a wide range of offerings some a little off the wall to very tasteful so it was a good time exploring. I ended up walking out with some cute little magnets for my bare fridge and my friend got here assistant a cute little duck tea diffuser.

It’s true what they’re saying. This is a really fun little shop. They have a nice section of cute baby gifts, some Seattle-​themed gifts, some fun journal-​type things, and lots of other neat and interesting stuff. It’s pretty reasonably-​priced too, as far as gifty things go. I feel like they did all the hard «thinking» work for me (since I’m terrible at coming up with gifty things!), and put everything in one spot. I’ll be doing lots of gift shopping here in the future!

Fantastic service, fantastic selection, and completely true to the sign outside: «The gift shop for the thoughtful procrastinator!»
I wandered in early (okay, my definition of «early» may take a few liberties) on a Sunday morning, looking for a birthday gift for a one-​year-​old boy. Having no kids myself, and few friends with any, this is quite possibly the first first birthday party I’d been to since — well — being around that age myself!
Since this was for family, I had been stressed about choosing the right gift for weeks (See? THOUGHTFUL procrastinator!), but the time had finally come that I just had to pick something and go. Lucky for me, Portage Bay Good DELIVERED!
[I mean that in the metaphorical way, not that they shipped to me… I don’t know about those things]
I was quickly able to find the section of tactile/​book/​visual toys that seemed appropriate for kiddos and picked a noise-​making puzzle of different vehicles (helicopter, race car, ferry, etc). The woman at the front confirmed for my insecure-​baby-​gift-​buying-​self that it was an appropriately aged toy, offered to wrap it for free, and I was on my merry way!
At the check out, I noticed gobs more kitchy magnets, cards, and totes that I will certainly be going back to discover. Not to mention, my very first in-​person sighting of «Go the F**k to Sleep»!!! PBG, you just earned yourself a lifetime customer.

This store is full of lots of fun, kitschy things. Think magnets, cards, t-​shirts, gag-​gifts, etc. It’s also super eco-​friendly too. They have lots of cute grocery bags. I bought one of those awesome head scratchers too. Great spot in Fremont that fits in with the quirky attitude of the neighborhood. I don’t buy a lot here, but I like to go in and look around whenever I am in the area, and I like to get cards here for friends and family just because.

This shop has a nice selection of smart and clever gift ideas.
This place gets a 5 in my book because of its top notch, high five worthy service. I picked up a letter press card there while on vacation a few weeks ago. Somehow the card disappeared while on my way home. I blame TSA. I was bummed because it was a funny card that I could not locate at Paper Source.
I called the store, and the associate found the card on the shelf and sent it out to me. I had to pay for it, but I was thankful for her going the extra mile for me. It arrived that week and my woman was thrilled.
Hooray for Portage Bay!

I love these kinds of stores! They sell lots of quirky fun items here, and they make great gifts. They have a cute selection of greeting cards in the back that are cute and/​or hilarious. There are a ton of magnets and bumper stickers here, and a lot of the items are Seattle-​themed (tote bags, etc.).
I got this cute floating yellow duck tea strainer for my boyfriend as a gag gift. So cute! There are also Bungalow 360 wallets here, which feature super adorable prints on canvas material.
The lady at the front was super nice, and the boston terrier was in today. How cute.

What an absolutely adorable shop! I just loved everything about the toys, the atmosphere, the cards, the staff, everything! Most of the time when I visit places like this I go crazy wanting to buy things but never end up getting anything. They had a great mix of local products and bigger names. I just could not resist and ended up buying a few things. A great Fremont spot.

What a cute and conveniently located shop with eco-​friendly stuff!
As you see from my reviews, I really don’t go shopping all that often. Portage Bay Goods happens to be in a very convenient Fremont location, however, and I needed to buy some holiday cards. So I went inside and happened to find lots of cute little items that I know some people would love… and some amusing recycled/​eco-​friendly holiday cards.
They cards are more expensive than the ones at Hallmark, but they definitely have more… Heart? Character? I’m not sure how to explain it, but the cards just seemed a lot more… «small batch» (in a good way). It was also great to see some obviously new designs! (It can’t be that old if it mentions Twitter!)
When I was purchasing, the cashier gal said «I like your hoodie.» I wonder if she just liked the design or if she noticed it was a Unilocal Elite hoodie…