Built for the version of us
that used to cancel.
Stillwater started with a simple, slightly heretical idea: that a dental office could be a genuinely calm place. Here's who we are, and why we do it this way.
I sat in the parking lot too.
For most of my twenties I didn't have a dentist — I had a list of dentists I'd cancelled on. I knew the parking-lot feeling: engine running, hand on the gearshift, telling myself I'd go next month.
What I learned, eventually, is that the fear is almost never about teeth. It's about not being in control — being reclined, talked over, surprised by a bill. So I built Stillwater around the opposite of all of that. You stay upright as long as you like. Nothing happens without your understanding and your okay. The price comes before the drill, every single time.
I grew up a few blocks from where we are now. You'll find me at the Belmont farmers' market most Saturdays, and one Friday a month at a free clinic for neighbors without insurance. This is my corner of the city. You're my neighbor before you're ever my patient.
— Dr. Mateo Reyes, DMD
Five things we don't budge on.
- 01
Consent is continuous
Saying yes to an appointment is not saying yes to everything inside it. You can withdraw that yes at any second, and we will stop — mid-sentence, mid-procedure, it does not matter.
- 02
Plain words only
If we can't explain something without jargon, we don't understand it well enough to be doing it to you. You'll always know what's happening and why.
- 03
The price comes first
You will never find out what something cost after it's already done. The number comes before the decision, in writing, every time.
- 04
Slow is a feature
We book fewer people for longer. The room is only ever yours, the door stays shut, and nobody is tapping a watch in the hallway.
- 05
No one gets shamed
However long it has been, however things look in there — there is no lecture. There was never going to be one. That is the whole point of us.
It doesn't look like a dentist's office.
We took out the sliding glass window and the long row of waiting-room chairs. What's left feels more like a friend's front room — warm light, a big fiddle-leaf fig, a record player that's usually on low. The equipment is there when it's needed and tucked out of sight when it isn't. Even the drill is the quiet kind.
A small team, on purpose.
Dr. Mateo Reyes
Founder & dentist
Fifteen years of welcoming people who almost talked themselves out of coming.
Dana Okafor
Lead hygienist
The gentlest hands in Portland — and happy to prove it at your pace.
June Halvorsen
Comfort & front desk
The warm voice on the phone who makes that first call easy.
Theo Marsh
Sedation nurse
Keeps a careful eye on you throughout, so you never have to.
One Friday a month, our chairs are free.
We run a no-cost clinic for neighbors without insurance — because nobody should have to ration their own health by the dollar. If you know someone who's been going without, point them our way.