Blue Star Donuts Co-Founder Launches Heart Pizza Chainlet

Micah Camden, who co-founded Portland’s Little Big Burger, Blue Star Donuts, and Boxer Ramen with Katie Poppe, is launching a new pizza chain, Heart Pizza, WWeek reports. Heart Pizza has three locations planned already, and the first Heart Pizza should open by Thanksgiving next door to the new Blue Star Donuts in the South Waterfront neighborhood. Little Big Burger is also located in this area of South Waterfront, creating a cluster of Camden-founded businesses.

After successfully launching burger, donut, and ramen chains, Camden is known for upgrading fast food. He often hits the salivational mark, although two concepts, Hop Dog and Son of a Biscuit, are now closed.

For this project, Camden is teaming up with Matt Lynch, who has served for years as general manager to many of Camden’s projects. Speaking with WWeek, Lynch says:

"We've wanted to do pizza since the second Little Big Burger. Portland has so many good restaurants and pizza shops like Ken's Artisan, Neapolitan pizza places — but they're all sit-down. Which for me, is not how I eat pizza. We're going to do what we've always been doing: Get a big fancy oven, make this artisanal thing, and dumb it down."

So far, this sounds like it entails serving 10-to-12-inch pizzas for $10 to 12, with a focus on more veggie toppings and a healthy approach in general — at least when compared to Camden’s past guilty-pleasure projects. Highlighting the fact that it’s all about takeout, each Heart Pizza location will have between 5 to 20 seats. Beer and wine will be available for dining in or takeout.

The second and third locations of Heart Pizza will be in the Hassalo on Eighth building and in the West End, in the former Solestruck, at 417 SW 13th Ave. They are expected to open over the next six months to a year.

• Mini-Chain of Artisan Pizza Shops Coming From People Behind Blue Star and Little Big Burger [WWeek]