I have never, not once, gone to River Pig because I just felt like it. It has always been a randomoccasion bar for me– viewing the Super Bowl, a birthday party scavenger hunt, a bachelorette party, a "well, we're already in the Pearl, might as well" moment of weakness. Once through those front doors, while I’ve befriended some nice strangers there, I must say that I have never run into someone I previously knew that I liked…

Sunday Sauce is the new North Portland project from Amanda and Judson Winquist, the team behind Normandie, with Executive Chef Isaiah Brown running the kitchen. It's an East Coast Italian-American restaurant, full stop—not the softened, everywhere-at-once version of "Italian" that shows up in some basic-level chain restaurants, or some local spot that gives giant portions that don’t back it up with the proper amount of flavor. No, Sunday Sauce is something more specific: true New Jersey and New York red-sauce cooking, built around the Winquist family's own Sunday-dinner tradition.

Such accessibility allows for so many people to experience more beautiful possibilities and opportunities in life, but on the other hand…if everyone can have a design career, then it also makes you wonder, “Can anyone?” The design industry has always been considered highly competitive, but it has now become so blatantly oversaturated that sometimes you still can’t align with a position even when you extend your skillsets into marketing, branding, and social media…