JinJu: coming back to Williams

On N Williams, the news you need comes first. JinJu Patisserie closed its original small shop on the street at the end of 2025, and people in Portland have been asking ever since when chefs Jin Caldwell and Kyurim "Q" Lee would bring their croissants back. They plan to reopen at 3494 N Williams, in Carbon 12 (the former Harder Day space, just south of the original), around early October 2026. Dates like that can slip, so check their site and the account they actually update before you go, and if they're open, go.

JinJu makes laminated pastry on the Williams and Mississippi corridor, in Boise, and it won the 2025 James Beard Award for Outstanding Bakery. Caldwell and Lee trained in Las Vegas, Lee in the pastry kitchen at Joël Robuchon and Caldwell working with chocolate, and they moved to Portland and opened JinJu in 2019 in a tiny Williams storefront that filled up every morning with huge, dark-golden croissants next to a case of bonbons. They kept the shop small on purpose. When the original lease came due, they picked a new space a few blocks south instead of signing another long term in the old one, and they spent the break traveling and visiting bakeries.

This guide hasn't seen the finished Carbon 12 space yet, so what follows comes from the original shop and what the chefs have said about the move. The original was tiny, with a glass case packed with laminated pastry, a chocolate case of airbrushed bonbons, racks of croissants cooling until they were crisp, and hardly any furniture. The new address is also a patisserie you walk into, so expect something similar, with a lit case, a short line and pastries that sell quickly.

First-timers always ask which pastry to get, and the answer is the kouign-amann, if it's out. It's sugar, butter and laminated dough baked until it shatters and then goes sticky in the same bite, and on weekends it sometimes has a gianduja center of hazelnut chocolate cream. It doesn't split well, so get your own. After that, get a croissant, because this is the shop people mean when they talk about a croissant that shatters, dark golden and huge, with layers that crackle when you touch them. The ham-bacon-cheese croissant is the savory one to get when you want pastry for lunch. Add a fruit tart if the fruit looks good, and a box of bonbons if you want something sweet for later.

If the kouign-amann is gone, take whichever croissant looks flakiest. Pastry sold out at the original shop and it'll sell out at the new one, so go earlier than you think you need to and have a second choice in mind, along with a backup plan in case the reopening date slips. Early October 2026 is the target Caldwell and Lee have given publicly, so check before you go, both before the reopening and after.

Want the short version? It's on the JinJu Patisserie page.