Nationally Noteworthy Burger Bar Stoopid Burger Will Close Sunday

The owners of one of Portland’s most creative burger bars have decided to turn off the griddles. Stoopid Burger — a food-cart-turned-restaurant known for its hardcore sandwiches — will close early next month. According to a social media post, the restaurant’s final day of service is February 2.

The text of the closure announcement is very brief: “Sunday February 2nd will be Stoopid Burgers (sic) last day. Much love to our supporters.” Stoopid Burger’s team has not responded to Facebook and email requests for comment, and the restaurant owners’ voicemail is full.

However, it looks like Willamette Week got some more details from co-owner John Hunt. Hunt told the alt-weekly that he and Danny Moore decided to “part ways,” closing the restaurant. However, he also hinted at some other “culinary venture” coming later this year — time will tell what that project will be.

In the words of former Willamette Week writer Sophia June, “There’s nothing as stupidly good as the Stoopid Burger.” The original cart opened in 2014, quickly becoming a standby for critics and diners alike: The restaurant won the Oregonian’s 2016 People’s Choice award for Portland’s Best Burger, and made the final four of Willamette Week’s Burger Madness bracket. Hunt and Moore opened the Stoopid Burger restaurant in 2017, eventually making Eater Portland’s map of the essential burgers in Portland.

In a piece for Eater’s national site, reporter Meghan McCarron called Stoopid Burger “one of the city’s most prominent black-owned restaurants,” comparing the restaurant’s Wicked Burger — topped with things like pineapple habanero salsa, bacon, and peanut butter — to a dish at James-Beard-winner Gabriel Rucker’s flagship. “Like the lobster fried chicken at Le Pigeon, it could have just been a weird concept with no pleasure beyond its weirdness. And like the lobster fried chicken at Le Pigeon, it instead overloaded so many inputs at once, the only solution was to take another bite,” McCarron writes. “The tart pickles, fatty bacon, hot chutney, and sticky-sweet peanut butter crunch was just crazy enough to be genius.”

Updated January 31, 2020, at 12:56 p.m.
This story has been updated to include comments from co-owner John Hunt.

• Stoopid Burger [Facebook]
• Previous Stoopid Burger coverage [EPDX]
• Whatever Happened to Portland? [E]
• The Essential Burgers that Melt Portland’s Heart [EPDX]
• Burger Madness: Top Classic Burger in Portland Revealed [WWeek]
• Stoopid Burger wins People’s Choice vote for Portland’s best burger [O]