Portland Food Hall Throws Open the Doors on Friday Downtown

The third food hall to set up shop downtown in the past year will opens its doors at 11 a.m. on April 14, at 827 SW 2nd Ave. Located next door to Luc Lac and across the street from Q Restaurant, Portland Food Hall is the latest project by Andres Ochoa (Ocean, the Zipper) of Rogue Development and Interurban Development—one of the partners involved in Pine Street Market.

Inside the 4,000-square-foot venue, five micro-restaurants and a bar will maintain breakfast, lunch, and dinner hours seven days a week, and two to-be-announce vendors still remain. “We got our permits passed today,” Ochoa told Eater on Tuesday. “Everyone I’m looking at right now is in their kitchens preparing recipes. We’re ready to open.”

The Portland Food Hall has the typical food hall setup, with customers ordering from the restaurants and grabbing a seat among communal seating spread throughout the venue. And a 1,000-square-foot mezzanine will be home to Minibar, a craft cocktail bar that will operate into the night.

Here’s the Portland Food Hall lineup:

• Moberi: This spot by Ryan Carpenter made its name with bike-powered-blended smoothies. The peddle-power may be gone, but those superfood smoothies and breakfast acai bowls haven’t gone anywhere.
• Cosa: Located right at the front of Portland Food Hall, this coffee shop from the team behind the now-shuttered Dogbone Farms food cart will serve Portland-roasted Coava Coffee and hand-churned ice cream. Order inside or hit the ordering window that opens onto the sidewalk.

Yelp

• The Whole Bowl: This nut-, gluten-, wheat-, and hydrogenated oil-free build-your-own-bowls spot needs no introduction. “I’ve been eating Whole Bowls for 16 years. Tali Ovadia [owner] is Portland in a bowl,” Ochoa said.
• Aiko Ramen: The hall’s ramen restaurant comes from the popular Hapa Ramen team, known for its standout Japanese-Hawaiian approach to ramen. Hapa Ramen will continue to operate in the Tidbits food cart pod.
• Boke Dokie: This breakout food cart by the Boke Bowl team continues on its march to total fried-chicken-sandwich domination with its third location in less than a year (a fourth is coming to Rachel’s Ginger Beer). It’s all about that Asian-style sandwich—which also comes in a tofu version—but the rest of the menu shouldn’t be overlooked.
• Minibar: Opening at a later date, this may be the Portland Food Hall’s sleeper, and while Ochoa won’t release specifics, he told Eater Minibar will be helmed by a rotating team of veteran Portland bartenders—among them, members of the Bible Club.

Portland Food Hall is still seeking two vendors: one specializing in breakfast and another who can take advantage of the shared kitchen. Zaatar, the Pearl’s upscale Lebanese restaurant, has dropped out of the project.

“We wanted to give people the opportunity to open their restaurants without dropping $200,000,” says Ochoa. “With Pine Street Market opening ahead of us, we needed to something different. We originally had the word ‘market’ in our name, for instance.” Ochoa says Portland Food Hall made a point of gathering a compatible team. “I think every person here has had a cart background in some form, and we hope this will be a launch pad for them, while still sticking around.”

• Portland Food Hall [Official]
• All Previous Portland Food Hall Coverage [EPDX]