In Portland, food cart pods foster connection, cultural exchange

Lily Roby

PORTLAND, Ore. (CN) — Early last year, Sunny Hatch opened his Korean fried-chicken cart Frybaby in the central Buckman neighborhood of Portland. A first-generation Korean-American from Dallas, Hatch grew up surrounded by Korean and Southern food and wanted to bring those flavors to Rose City.

When he made the choice to open Frybaby, Hatch opted for a food cart rather than a brick-and-mortar restaurant. While food carts have their downsides, including minimal space for food storage and prep, many Portland entrepreneurs like Hatch nonetheless find that carts are a more affordable way to get a small food business running.

“It’s a great way to enter in a somewhat financially low-risk scenario,” Hatch said in an interview as his employees mixed plum syrup, fresh-cut limes and sparkling water for their weekly drink special. In his experience, Portland has less regulations on opening food carts compared to restaurants. Best of all was the diverse range of meal options that pods provide. “You can go with a group of people,” he said, “and there’s always something for everyone.”

At the heart of every Portland neighborhood lies a food cart pod or two or five. The city — known for its culinary diversity — boasts more than 500 food carts and around a hundred so-called pods, outdoor or indoor spaces that feature a variety of carts as well as space to mingle.

Food cart pods come in a variety of flavors. A typical pod, such as French Quarter in the Multnomah Village neighborhood, offers a straightforward dining experience focused on variety. Visitors can select from a generous array of options, including sushi, gyros or tacos, then dine alongside their neighbors at picnic tables.

Other pods, like Hawthorne Asylum in Buckman, take the experience a step further, offering additional amenities like attached bars or breweries, more refined seating and fire pits. What unites these pods is that they provide communal space, cafeteria-style dining and plentiful options. Popular with both tourists and locals across the city, they create opportunities for small businesses, space to connect with neighbors and a chance for patrons to discover new cultures.

If there’s one reason people flock to pods, it’s variety. Larger pods can look and feel like a food festival. Even the smallest ones offer a handful of different cuisines.

The BG Food Cartel in the Beaverton suburb, along with the Springwater Cart Park in the Brentwood-Darlington neighborhood, are some of the largest so-called “super pods” in Oregon, both hosting around thirty international carts. That variety highlights a key draw of food cart pods: Visit with friends, family or coworkers, and everyone can eat exactly what they’d like.

In the Lents neighborhood in Southeast Portland, Collective Oregon Eateries or CORE has leaned into community-building. The pod is geared towards hosting gatherings, allowing nonprofits and other local groups to rent the space for fundraisers and other events.

Jeanie Nguyen, a sales and account manager and Portland foodie, makes a strong effort to dine at pods like Lil’ America and CORE because their goals align with hers so strongly.

“I think the owners of CORE feel a real, great responsibility [for] creating that community,” Nguyen said. “They have accessible price points and community events,” and “the owners there intentionally support community over competition.”

As a person of color, Nguyen also makes an effort to patronize minority-owned carts. As she sees it, carts are an excellent gateway to the local economy for minority groups: Not only are they financially easier to open than restaurants, they also offer a way for non-white cooks to share their cultures and cuisines.

“We’re really lucky to be able to have pods, because it’s hard for people to open a business, and it gives Portlanders the opportunity to expand their palate,” Nguyen said. “It’s brought really great talent from around the world here.”

Whenever friends visit for the Portland experience, “food carts are the first thing on the top of my mind,” she added. “It’s a really great identifier of Portland and how supportive it is of independent businesses.”

Elsewhere in Southeast Portland, the Portland Mercado in the Foster-Powell neighborhood was intentionally built to be a hub of culture.

Operated by Hacienda CDC, a Latino-led nonprofit focused on community development, the Mercado opened in April 2015 as an indoor/outdoor pod and Latino marketplace. The Mercado saw massive success, creating 114 new jobs in its first year of business and welcoming an average of 580 guests per day.

“The Portland Mercado was a community and culture hub for specifically Latino entrepreneurs,” explained Alex Valle, a coordinator for Hacienda CDC’s Empresarios program. “Our focus was to do events and bring the community together. And not only bring our community together but communities of all different races, and expose them to the kind of culture that Latinos and people from South America celebrate.”

In January, a fire severely damaged the Mercado, burning down its entire market hall. That led Mercado to shut down its events and indoor businesses.

In a testament to how much Portlanders love their food carts, the Mercado received “an incredible swell of community support” after the fire, the pod said in a news release, as community members donated to a fire relief fund for the impacted businesses. Thanks to support from both the neighborhood and the broader Latino community in Portland, the Mercado now hopes to reopen its indoor market by 2025.

To Hatch, the strongest benefit of pods is the community they create.

Lil’ America, the pod where Frybaby is housed, is a diverse pod that prioritizes hosting minority and queer events like drag shows or Cinco de Mayo celebrations. As Frybaby grew, Hatch connected with queer and non-white cart owners, joining a diverse community where advice and support is shared among those with different levels of food industry experience.

“I now know more Asian people than I’ve ever known in my entire life, just through the Asian food community,” Hatch said. Portland, he noted, is predominately white — almost 75% white, according to the 2020 Census. “So, to have the kind of diversity that Lil’ America brings to the Central Eastside is really nice.”