If you live in Portland, you know some family outings are planned with military precision. You pack snacks, charge phones, check hours, and pray nobody has a public meltdown over the wrong flavor of smoothie. And then there are the outings where you just shrug and say, “Let’s go wander an old mall while we still can.” Lloyd Center is squarely in that second category, and honestly, that’s what makes it fun. The longtime Portland mall is set to close to the public on August 8, so families still have a little time left to squeeze in one last visit to one of the city’s weirdest, most nostalgic indoor adventures.
The first stop should be the Lloyd Center Ice Rink, because that’s still the heart of the whole place. The rink remains open and offers public skating along with lessons, birthday parties, broomball, and other programs. Even if your kids spend more time clinging to the wall than actually skating, that still counts. In some cases, that’s the full experience. There’s just something about skating in the middle of an old mall that still feels very Portland in the best possible way.
After skating, or before if your family prefers snacks as a warm-up activity, make a stop at Joe Brown’s Carmel Corn. Yes, it’s still there. If you’ve ever had that popcorn, you already know it somehow tastes like childhood, field trips, and mild overconfidence all at once. If you haven’t, now is the time to fix that.
Beyond that, part of the fun is simply letting your family explore. Lloyd Center is no longer a normal mall experience, and that’s kind of the point. It has become more of a community oddity than a shopping destination, which makes wandering around with kids feel surprisingly entertaining. You can walk the levels, people-watch, soak in the strange in-between atmosphere, and let your kids ask questions like, “Wait, this many people used to come here to shop?” Yes, children. Once upon a time, we all gathered indoors under fluorescent lights for sport.
If you want to stretch the outing a little longer, Lloyd also still has the built-in advantage of nearby family-friendly add-ons. But even without overplanning the day, the mall itself is enough for one last outing. That is especially true because Lloyd’s closure really does feel like the end of a very specific kind of Portland experience, one that’s a little faded, a little funky, and somehow still lovable. The mall is now more than 90% vacant, which honestly sounds bleak on paper, but in person, it gives the place a kind of time-capsule quality that makes a visit memorable.
So if you’ve been thinking about taking your kids to Lloyd Center one more time, do it. Go skating. Grab Joe Brown’s. Walk around for no real reason. Let your family have one of those oddly perfect Portland afternoons that feels a little random and a little sentimental. Because once August 8 comes, the chance to make one more weird, snack-filled, slightly slippery Lloyd Center memory goes with it. And really, if your kids leave with popcorn in their hands and no one falls directly onto another child at the rink, that’s what parenting experts call a huge win.
Tiffany Wilson is a 42-year-old stay-at-home mom from Tigard, Oregon, raising three kids—Sophie, Noah, and Riley. She’s a warm, hands-on parent who mixes daily routines with creative fun, whether it’s a backyard scavenger hunt or building a blanket fort in the living room.