Kachka’s Outdoor Dining Space Will Serve Pizza Roll Vareniki Starting Friday

As the COVID-19 outbreak in Oregon continues to impact the local restaurant market, stories are popping up across the city, from food cart owners giving away free meals to chefs starting Instagram cooking classes. In this new version of AM Intel, we dive into different ways the state’s food service industry has been responding to the global pandemic. For more COVID-19 stories, check out our larger story stream.

Kachka Alfresca

Kachka will open a ‘90s-nostalgic outdoor version of its restaurant on Friday, adding 29 tented tables to the upstairs parking lot. Kachka Alfresca will serve a whole-new menu of dishes like spinach artichoke khachapuri, smoked potato skins with beef belly pastrami, jalapeno popper chicken Kiev, and Totinos Pizza Roll vareniki. The restaurant will also serve Kachka standbys like Herring Under a Fur Coat and Siberian pelmeni. Meanwhile, the bar is rolling out guava-tinis and strawberry margarita slushies, along with the beloved horseradish vodka. The restaurant is taking reservations starting Friday; check out the full menu here. [Oregonian]

The Return of the Inka

One of the Portland area’s best restaurants for pollo a la brasa, El Inka, closed in early 2019 to the heartbreak of Peruvian-food lovers in the area. Turns out, the restaurant is coming back, only not in its original Gresham digs: The restaurant has found a new locale in a SE Division restaurant space. Sadly, the restaurant isn’t opening with its Peruvian rotisserie chicken; instead, the menu will include other Peruvian classics, like the steak-and-soy-sauce-centric lomo saltado and Peruvian fried rice dish arroz chaufa. Down the line, however, that chicken will likely return. The restaurant opens today, June 24, at 8560 SE Division Street. [O]

Army Retreats

Grand Army Tavern, the Woodlawn restaurant and bar home to the popular Italian mini-restaurant Campana, is now becoming Campana full time, taking over the other restaurant space. In the beginning of this year, Campana took over a small nook off the main bar and restaurant, a restaurant-within-a-restaurant with exceptional risotto and red sauce Italian stalwarts. The main restaurant, however, was a pseudo-tropical bar with whole animal butchery and a noteworthy brunch. Now, Campana will be running the show, offering seasonal pastas, salads, and Italian cocktails. The restaurant will reopen this Friday. [O]

Bye Bye Bye, Sweedeedee

As Portland restaurants move to reopen into phase one, one beloved North Portland cafe will be closing its doors, though maybe not for good — Sweedeedee announced on Instagram that it would be closing in the face of COVID-19 economic effects, but that the team was looking for a way to reopen in the future.

Known for its menu of comforting breakfast foods and its pies, especially the salted honey pie, Sweedeedee’s cute and cozy space is far too small for the social distancing requirements laid out by the state. During the dining room shut down, the shop converted to a market, selling wines, pies, jams, and pasta, but will be shuttering that operation now as well. “We need to step back to reevaluate our business structure before moving forward,” the post reads. “Although the doors will be shuttered, please know that we are going to try our best to come up with a plan for when we can all be in public spaces again safely.” [EaterWire]

• Previous AM Intel [EPDX]