Submarine Hospitality Co-Founder Luke Dirks Is Leaving the Company

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.

Submarine Split

Luke Dirks, the co-founder of restaurant group Submarine Hospitality, has left the business following social media posts about the company’s culture surfaced in the last two weeks. The posts alleged everything from McFadden screaming at employees to managers working while visibly intoxicated. The group, which includes restaurants like Ava Gene’s and Tusk, will stay under the purview of chef and co-founder Joshua McFadden. Last week, McFadden announced that both Dirks and Tusk chef Sam Smith would leave the company; Dirks confirmed that he would step away. “I have had the pleasure of working with some of the most talented, hardworking and warmhearted people. Over the past few months, Joshua McFadden and I have come to the end of our working relationship,” Dirks writes in a public statement. “This decision is complex and layered, but at the end of the day I have decided to step aside and allow Joshua to chart the future of Submarine without me.” Dirks told the Oregonian that his plans to leave began in April, but recent events inspired the expedited departure.

Summertime Spaghetti

Matt Lynch, co-owner of fast-food wunderkind Super Deluxe, and Adam Berger, the man behind 24th and Meatballs and the now-closed Tabla, have opened a new Italian market in the space once home to Poison’s Rainbow. Like 24th and Meatballs, Montelupo is notably inexpensive, with pastas in the $8 to $14 range — a mint-and-basil pesto pasta clocks in at $11, while a rye pappardelle in a pork ragu is $12. The restaurant also offers a number of grab-and-go salads, old-reliable cocktails like negronis and Hemingway daiquiris, and olive oil cakes for dessert. The team behind the restaurant includes executive chef Sedona McCaffrey-Allen, a Nostrana alum, and bartender Eddie Riddell, formerly of Trifecta. The restaurant is open for outdoor dining, takeout, and delivery.

In Other News...

• Starting in August, there will be a new food editor at Portland Monthly. Katherine Chew Hamilton is coming from the East Bay Express in Oakland; she says she’s “passionate about covering restaurants, pop-ups, neighborhoods, and food entrepreneurs that, at least historically, wouldn’t otherwise receive much press attention.” [PoMo]
• The state broke another daily record for new coronavirus cases this weekend, with 409 new cases reported Saturday and 99 new cases Multnomah County alone. [O]