Downtown's Scratch Cafeteria Calls it Quits After 10 Weeks

Downtown's foreboding-sounding Justice Center, as it turns out, wasn't interested in getting its own lunch counter. Chef/owner Patrick Lee Warner confirms that Scratch Cafeteria, the first of what will be many expansions of his SCRATCH brand, has shuttered after less than three months in business.

"Last Friday was our last day," Warner says of the quiet closure, adding that a flexible lease allowed him to quickly move on from the failed venture. "We just shut the doors. Literally we were seeing less than $100 a day downtown. I think that location has some issues... the Justice Center sounds like such a good idea, but the [workers within] don't leave the building enough. And when they do, they get in their cars and go elsewhere."

The silver lining: The cafeteria's closure has no effect on Scratch's Lake Oswego mothership or Warner's other expansion plans, and he hints that the next SCRATCH incarnation — in the form of Scratch Burger, near PSU — is progressing as planned. "I'm just lucky that I'm not the person that likes to hold on like, 'I can make this work,'" Warner says.
· Scratch Foods [Official site]
· All Previous Scratch Cafeteria Coverage [Eater PDX]