Come for the Boba, stay for the Banh Mi! Fun and cute space with a huge variety of teas. Our boba-master Alaura was welcoming and very knowledgeable. Her pork banh mi was sooooo good. The Boba was amazing. Everything was fresh and flavorful. It was great to see a number of regulars stopping through for tea and comforting to watch younger kids pick out their sanwiches. You hear all about picky eaters these days but not at Fat Straw. Stephen the owner popped out to check on everyone, even though it was not necessary. The counter service handled it all! Definately a must when going through the neighborhod! read more

This is like fast food boba, not gourmet boba, but there's nothing inherently wrong with that. I ordered jasmine milk tea with boba, half sweet (they can either do full or half sweetness), and light ice, and it hit the spot. Tea was flavorful but not too sweet, boba was the perfect chewiness. The shop is roomy and great for hanging out. read more

Fat Straw - Coffee & Tea Near Me - Portland, Oregon

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When a friend tells you they've never tried boba before, you gotta try it. It's always so funny to see their face when they take the first sip. I stopped by this place after lunch for a "sweet treat" in beverage form. I got the coffee boba for a little hit of caffeine. They were quite busy, but the boba came out quick. Prices are $5-6 ish. I did not try food, but it looks like they have sandwiches and bagels. The interior is a little quirky with a raised seating area next to the window and game tables for chess, checkers, etc. It felt a little crowded/chaotic, and I didn't love the beta fish in the plant pots. People seem to really love this spot. I thought it was okay. The boba was totally normal. Which, don't get me wrong, I enjoy normal boba, but it didn't blow my mind. read more

Fat Straw - Menu - June 2025 - Coffee & Tea Near Me - Portland, Oregon

Quick & friendly service. Cute space with lots of plants & artwork like stickers, charms, plushies, etc for sale. Ordered a winter melon iced milk tea with tapioca pearls. Tea was good but a little overly sweet, I would ask for less sugar next time. Tapioca pearls were perfectly cooked. Not hard & has the perfect chew. The tapioca is what makes or breaks a boba tea drink for me & Fat Straw seems to have the texture down! Overall, a cute little boba tea shop with good service & good tea. Would definitely recommend & return! Took off a star because while it's good, it's nothing mind blowing as far as menu items go. Pretty average run of the mill tea and topping options. read more

Fat Straw - Inside - Coffee & Tea Near Me - Portland, Oregon

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My favorite place to get bubble tea! Delicious drinks and everyone is so kind! Highly recommend going here!!!

Stumbled in a hot day and I've been addicted ever since. This place is incredible. Their selection of Boba and flavors for smoothies is unreal. My favorite flavor of smoothie is the lychee and passionfruit. If you're into Boba or smoothies this place is a gold mine. read more

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You didn't give me $3 off ! You gave me $1 off and it didn't even cover 1/3 of a drink . Maybe 1/5 of a drink . And yes you should honor it ! I've been a small business owner and customer service is important! No it was not from another location ! It was all from your location! I've lived in this location for over 30 years and raised kids going to your place of business . Zero has drinks too ! read more

I, myself, do not drink bubble tea. My 13 year old son, however, seems to gain all his nutrients from it, as I rarely see him consume much else. This is his favorite spot. It's his favorite spot to the point that he wants to know when he'll be old enough to get a job there. It's ridiculous. So. If you like bubble tea, Fat Straw comes highly recommended by your local teenager. If you want to see your kid eat a vegetable, well then, maybe not. read more

This place has such a cute aesthetic and a ton of drinks to choose from. The staff are very friendly and I've never had a bad drink from here. One of the best boba shops in Portland! read more

Fat Straw - Classic milk tea - Coffee & Tea Near Me - Portland, Oregon

I've been bringing my kids here so long that one of them *has* a kid now. In that time, the sandwiches and the boba tea has been phenomenal. The people are very friendly. And it's in a good location for strolling around after! My oldest kid lives on the east coast now and when he comes to town, Fat Straw is a must visit read more

I've been a patron of Fat Straw since I was 15. I love this tea shop, the best boba in town. I lived in different cities in the past decade and I've always craved Fat Straw. This shop is owned by a fierce local family. I appreciate how they show up, how they advocate for what is right, and employ the surrounding neighborhood. They are the epitome of a family-owned business and I will always continue to support them. Truly a force to be reckoned with! Get the raspberry pomegranate green tea with boba! read more

I love Fat Straw. Best boba in town in my opinion and great friendly owner and staff! Their bahn mi and breakfast sandwiches are also delicious if a bit pricey. We take the grand daughters there many weekends and my 5 yr old loves playing tic tac toe or dominoes at one of their game tables while we're waiting. They're always pretty busy being located in the bustling and vibrant Hawthorne district but well worth the occasional wait to get your order. read more

I'll be honest - when we walked in front of the store and saw the menu we immediately thought that there was no way the milk tea here could be any good, given that it seemed that Fat Straw focused on artificially flavored drinks instead of tea. We decided to give it a chance and got one drink: Original Milk Tea, 50% Sweet w/ Boba ($6.75) - Pretty interesting how they make the drink. Instead of prebrewed tea in drink dispensers, as in a typical boba shop, they have buckets of prebrewed tea and boba in a fridge and they ladle the contents into your cup. Half sweetness is a bit less sweet than other places and really allows the black tea taste to come through. The tea quality is not the best, but good enough for the drink. The boba here is almost, but not quite, the perfect texture. It's a larger brand of boba in terms of size, it has a softer exterior but still maintains structural integrity. The exterior texture is to the point where if you slide your teeth across the topmost layer with a bit of force, the very topmost layer kind of sloughs off. You then get to a nice chewy interior as you bite into it. The sugar syrup soak introduces an additional bit of sweetness in the drink. I'm glad we gave Fat Straw a chance because it turned out to be much better than we thought. The boba was missing just a bit of the bounciness of what I consider perfect and the tea isn't the highest quality, but overall, I consider Fat Straw in the top quartile of places I've been to. read more

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Fat Straw is a great neighbourhood location for coffee and boba drinks. The service is great. On a recent visit, I told the barista, Mia, that I wanted something without caffeine and she offered a delicious boba option. And the banh mi? They are amazing. read more

High quality boba drinks and food with friendly fast service! I can't give 5 stars because they recently raised their prices quite a bit.. but for a treat once in a while it's still definitely worth it. The best boba quality and flavors I've found so far in Portland. A cute vibe and lots of real plants, recommend! read more

not open during covid-19 - I ordered the JASMIN milk tea with tapioca pearls and mango green tea with lychee jelly. I'm kind of upset that my drink wasn't filled to the top because I feel like this was a significant amount missing and I didn't ask for light ice :( read more

Fat Straw - Jasmine Vegan Milk Tea and Mango Ice Green Tea! Just a tiny bit annoyed that my drink wasn't filled to the top. - Coffee & Tea Near Me - Portland, Oregon

I found this place by accident when my normal boba place was closed and I'm so happy I did! GRAPE FLAVOR!! Their menu is so stinkin long with flavors they allow and I've never found a place that has grape, which happens to be my favorite drink flavor, so imagine my surprise! The blends are great and they can mix multiple flavors which isn't usually advertised so I'm unsure if other places would do this too. read more

Fat Straw is a must go-to boba spot! I have literally been coming here since high school, and I am almost in my thirties now! Great local cafe to hang with friends, they have some outdoor seating, games, and a great vibe. Really can't go wrong with anything on the menu, which is why I find myself coming back here anytime I am craving boba. read more

Great prices, fast service. The location has a fair amount of seating, along with a side walk seating area out front. I thought the stainless steel boba straw was cool. Hemp milk latte was weird/bitter. Not sure if that's a hemp milk thing or a Fat Straw thing. read more

Fat Straw - Coffee & Tea Near Me - Portland, Oregon

I ordered a blended taro boba with extra boba and when I got it, it was iced with 2 cubes so the drink was warm when I asked if she can just blend it up because I wanted it blended she said no and on top of that I didnt get "xtra boba" and it was hard sad it was my first time but won't be back ! $7.50 to waste :((( read more

I love Fat Straw. The staff is kind, it's a sweet, welcoming place to sit and enjoy some tea and food, and they hugely support teachers! What's not to like? I highly recommend coming, even if you're not a bubble tea drinker. You don't have to get the boba in the teas, and they're very sensitive to needs as far as sugar intake. I love that they give options for unsweetened, half sweet, or full sweet. read more

I never had a bubble tea before and I will say it was better than amazing - it was spectacular - omg I had a black tea with grapefruit and some coconut gummies it it! I'm sold on this place Ronn just Ronn The hole in the wall food guy read more

Fat Straw - Black Tea Blended - Coffee & Tea Near Me - Portland, Oregon

Post hiking, during out vacation hobos Portland 2k18 edition, had to make a pit stop to recharge our phone battery. I got Honey Lavender, my travellers got some basic drink who cares. We (3) also shared one singular banh mi (cuz why not). Honey lavender was good, light flavor, I tend to do fruity boba but this was good. Banh mi was also mighty delicious and decently priced. I'd pay $6 for a banh mi but when you start charging me $8 (cough cough sf) then I might have to fight somebody. Chill atmosphere, surprisingly plenty of seating and outlet. Ah bless the outlet. I brought in my sushi-go and we played until our phone got fully invigorated. It is not perfect boba but it's good and the banh mi is yum. read more

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It is such a cute little cafe, we loved the Taro Bubble Tea with regular boba. The service was great, it only took 5 minutes to get our drinks. The little chess tables are perfect if you want to play chess or checkers. They have boba plushies that are really cute. Overall five stars, we reccomend. read more

I've been coming here for years. They have always given you a free drink for filling up all the stamps on your loyalty card. Brought in my full one today after not coming in for a month or so and when I handed it over to redeem I was told it's only $3 off your drink and not a free one, and the owner acted as if it's always been that way. Also got my order wrong which has never happened before. Basically you spend around $50 to fill up the card...for what is now a $3 discount. Not really worth it. I'm bummed they changed this policy and didn't make it clear. A disappointing experience from a business I've loved and promoted to other people for a long time. I get that inflation is making it hard for many business owners but this is a stingy way to run a loyalty program. read more

I love their boba tea. They use coconut milk which is great for lactose free folks. They have many flavors.

Not a boba fan but yesterday I was missing family and my brothers go to is boba so I stepped in and *Boom* instantly found my comfort place! My favorite boba shop, they let me customize my drink and didn't charge me extra for requesting no milk! Delicious And great customer service ! read more

Fat Straw - Strawberry , watermelon and blueberry popping boba blended no milk - Coffee & Tea Near Me - Portland, Oregon

Quality and Service depends greatly on who's working there. Today I asked for a tuna bahn mi with extra tuna and let them know I'd be willing to pay extra for the extra. I also ordered an avocado bubble tea, hold the bubble for my partner. I asked the young woman waiting on me to make sure it was well-blended and to ask if extra avocado would be possible...she told me...no, it wouldn' taste good. The bubble tea was passable but there were very large chunks of ice in it and the straw, well it was split. My sandwich was anything but generous. It was as if they painted on the tuna with a watercolor brush...very skimpy which doesn't make for a satisfying sandwich when you are truly hungry. This is usually our go-to place for this kind of thing...partially because its close. But the service is inconsistent. And for the price and requests I didn't feel very listened to... read more

!!!!!Please surrender your betas to someone who will take proper care of them, or at least transfer them each to their own heated and filtered tank.!!!! I love fat straw, and I know that it's very common for beta fishes to be sold as decoration, with no regard for the quality of life of the fish. I'm going to give y'all the benefit of the doubt and assume this is all new information; Betas should not be used as decoration and should be treated with care. It is incredibly unsettling to watch an intelligent, sentient creature die a slow and painful death while waiting for bubble tea. Makes you loose your appetite. The red fish looks like it is suffering from fin rot, and looks nearly dead. It's bloated and lethargic and needs assistance. This is 100% avoidable with proper care and treatment. Please consider discontinuing your use of live animals as decoration. They are suffering. Also, as always, the girls at fat straw are amazing and deserve raises. P.S I'll take the fishes off your hands for free, they really gotta get help read more

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Amazing service boba depending on how many people in ordering and people working can take from 2-5 minutes. The boba pearls are amazing best boba of all time. It gives you the feel of a cute cafe shop and just so cute and cozy they even have boba plushies highly recommend. read more

Don't you hate it when you get overcharged and only later find out about it in the Square email receipt? Sigh. That's what happened here, so I'd advise to check your emails as you wait for your order. Maybe the Staff fat fingered and added a topping to my drink ($.50) when I didn't order any. :( That said, my original milk tea and #2 banh mi sandwich ($6) came out just fine. The milk tea was decent ($5) but nothing memorable. I recall liking Boba Dawg's original milk tea much more (stronger tea taste). As for the sandwich, I enjoyed the toasted baguette, but the filling was .. hm... not a Vietnamese sandwich. It was overly salted with the additional soy sauce (which no banh mi sandwich needs!) on top of the salty BBQ pork. Also, I don't recall eating a banh mi with either ground black pepper or with purple onions. It just doesn't taste right to me. Overall, a decent place to grab something to eat, especially convenient with their ordering window now with covid around. read more

Not the best but not the worst bubble tea shop in my opinion. Sadly they ran out of boba when I went which always ruins the taste of a boba tea. The tea itself was okay. I might come back only if I'm in the area but there are other places I'd rather go and recommend. read more

Fat Straw - Coffee & Tea Near Me - Portland, Oregon

Today I really needed a snack & was out on the town & stumbled upon this delightful place. I was greeted with a great atmosphere full of plants & banging tunes. The wait was little long but there was clearly a rush, I didn't mind waiting because when I first sipped on the delicious beverage it was worth the wait. The staff were super lovely & told me the sandwich I ordered was made with love & boy did I taste the love. Might need hot sauce for some folk but not this person right here, I don't like hot sauce. For clarification I ordered the breakfast sandwich with 2 eggs, avocado & cheddar cheese. It satisfied me. Can't wait to come back! read more

Fat Straw - salted caramel milk tea with rainbow jelly! delicious - Coffee & Tea Near Me - Portland, Oregon

The fact that this shop offers biodegradable boba straws, they got an extra star. I got a Thai Iced Tea with half popping lychee boba and half regular tapioca bubbles. The Thai iced tea is decent, definitely tastes like it comes from powder instead of being brewed. The tapioca boba are decent. As this was my first time trying popping bubbles, I didn't quite know what to expect. They are not my cut of tea. They were quite sweet and not as satisfying as chewing on the normal tapioca bubbles. read more

Fat Straw - Biodegradable straws made from corn! I love this! - Coffee & Tea Near Me - Portland, Oregon

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Good quick service! I usually get a drink and banh mi to-go through doordash. Their menu online is not as extensive as the one in store (would love the blueberry milk tea option added online pleasssseee). Lots of the basic bubble tea flavor & topping options. Their boba is usually well cooked. The straws are really stiff and tend to split easily at the top if drinking w boba. The drinks are lactose free and don't have a syrupy/powdery taste. The banh mi is appropriately crunchy and even though i add a lot of modifiers, they always make it perfectly. It only takes 10-15 minutes after placing an order for it to be ready for pick up. The girls who work the counter are so sweet and cute. read more

Fat straw is so wonderful! The staff is so kind and the sandwiches and boba are consistently lovely. This is my absolute favorite place to go for boba in Portland. It's a fantastic family owned business that you must try! read more

I drink tons of boba places! This was one of the best ones I have had in Portland. (I did not like tiki). Location: It was a little far, if you don't have a rent-a-car or uber it will be out of your way. It felt like it was in a nice neighborhood and I saw a lot of local kids coming into the establishment when school was out. Drinks: 50% sugar was perfect for me, usually I get this at T4 and 70% on happy lemon drinks. Quickly's is almost 50% sugar also. I ordered a Lychee/Raspberry w/ Lychee popping boba. It was really good and refreshing for what it was. Toppings: Popping Lychee Boba - first time having this, and it was really good. It made my drink, I had no problem/drinking/eating these when all my tea was done. Aesthetics: It felt really nice inside. Had a bit of youth with the wooden wall feel so it felt old/rustic but w/ character. How a lot of Portland feels. Service: The gentlemen that helped us and made the drinks was very friendly and helpful. Price: 4$ including the topping, pretty good price. Use to paying tax in California and having topping be more so this is always a welcome surprise. Bathroom: Did not visit/try to use. read more

Fat Straw - Menu - Coffee & Tea Near Me - Portland, Oregon

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Been here a couple times now needed a refreshment on a hot day. We ordered the milk tea with hazelnut and matcha milk tea. Both were tasty. The gentlemen warned us that the matcha was stronger than most matcha. Yes it is chalky at first but give it a good shake and it'll be fine. Nice seating area in the back and by the windows. Some outdoor seating available. They do have punch cards. Location is on a busy street. Street parking available. read more

Portland has lots of Boba tea joints today, but few have been around since Fat Straw, which opened in 2005. I was sorry to see their second location on NW 23rd close a couple of years ago, but the original location on SE Hawthorne is still standing. I'm a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to Boba tea and we don't have a lot of great options in and/or near Boise, Idaho, where I live, so my go-to at Fat Straw is the Original Milk Tea. Every drink I've had from Fat Straw has been perfectly made. Each time I've gone, I have seen one of the owners behind the counter. That level of pride in ownership is part of what makes Fat Straw such a great family owned business. read more

Fat Straw - Original Milk Tea - Coffee & Tea Near Me - Portland, Oregon

Their website states "Our iced milk bubble teas are made with tea and coconut milk and contains no dairy and are Vegan." This is untrue. The associate at the front informed us the Taro milk tea has whey and there are others that are not as well. I am not vegan but I am allergic to milk. read more