COCKTAILS | RAW BAR | SMALL PLATES | 26 EXCHANGE STREET | THE OLD PORT WEEKENDS@11 NOW OPEN AM Times they are a-changin’ at the intersect of India and Fore Street, where a crop of new buildings have sprouted up in the past year. 50 p o r t l a n d monthly magazine Downtown mira mckenney; courtesy coworkhers; mira mckenney You Can Always Go Downtown F urther uptown, the action continues with exciting new eateries popping up along the fertile stretch of Con- gress Street. Here, two architectural trea- sures recently found their second lease on life. The Roma Café, which brought foodie delight to Portlanders long before we were ever considered foodies, rises from its ash- es to offer classic red-sauce Italian fare in The Rines Mansion at 767 Congress, where the restaurant lived from 1936 until 1989. If you’re weary of modern dining, with its communal tables and trend-driven ingre- dients, find a table at the tastefully reimag- ined Roma and order up a plate of spaghet- ti, meatballs, and Caesar salad…and enjoy. Just 250 feet away, The Francis Hotel in the Mellen E. Bolster House has shak- en off its dust sheets to begin a new life as a hip boutique hotel with accompanying res- taurant, Bolster, Snow & Co. Described by owners Nate DeLois, Tony DeLois, Jake De- Lois, and Jeff Harder as a “restaurant with rooms,” the petite hotel (named for famed architect Francis Fassett) is an homage to its history, with restored fireplace and clas- sic furnishings dotted around the living spaces and 15 bedrooms. Lafayette, We Are Here Another historical face peeks out from the corner Park and Congress from the lobby of the Lafayette Building. When you catch a glimpse of Teddy Roosevelt’s toothy grin, you’ve come face-to-face with the area’s lat- est high-end cocktail joint, Sagamore Hill Lounge. Owner Ryan Deskins describes Sagamore as “a world-class place to get a drink inside a former luxury hotel–which happened to be built during Roosevelt’s first term.” There will be beer and wine along with “a selection of presidentially in- spired drinks. The Rough Rider himself was fond of mint juleps, with fresh mint from the White House garden. Sagamore Hill is a place that we think Teddy would happily saddle up to today.” On the same row, tucked in beside Mer- chant & Co., Poké Pop will fuse the popu- larity of Hawaiian poké bowls (fresh, raw tuna served with assorted vegetables and rice) with Asian delicacies rarely seen in