Before it even opened, Saffron Colonial on North Williams caused controversy when many in the Portland community accused it of glorifying colonialism, and now, owner Sally Krantz tells Eater she will change the name of her bakery and restaurant to BORC, which stands for British Overseas Restaurant Corporation. The new name is a play on British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), a former British airline.

Two protests have been held at the restaurant formerly named Saffron Colonial, and among the recommendations presented by protestors were that Saffron Colonial change its name and remove all references to plantations from its menus.

In an email sent to Eater, Krantz explained why she made the name change:

While it would have been nice to keep my branding and have an accurate descriptor of the cuisine, I recognize that this is taking the focus off of what I want to do with food. My mission in opening this restaurant is to celebrate the wonderful multi-cultural aspects of food in a beautiful and multi-cultural part of Portland: my hometown, and a city that I love. Highlighting historical recipes and the development of dishes through the light of different countries and their relationships with England was a personal journey for me, after living in Asia and being immersed in a large population of English Expats for 20 years. As I have said, I love history and historic recipes, how food has developed and changed over time, and have developed many of these recipes in conjunction with the people I worked with from all over Asia and England to get them exactly right. So I'm hoping the new name, BORC, is a fun name to represent this concept. It is an acronym for British Overseas Restaurant Corporation and a tongue-in-cheek reference to the precursor to British Airways: BOAC, on which many Expatriates traveled. I'm sincerely hoping that this name change will allow us to focus on serving great food in a warm and positive environment.

When Eater asked Krantz whether the restaurant had removed all "colonial" and "plantation" references, Krantz said it had, adding that the words had each appeared only once at the restaurant: once on a chalk sign, and once on a cocktail menu. She says the chalkboard was erased prior to the protest and the cocktail menu was erased in response to the first protest, while the protesters were in the restaurant.

Since the Saffron Colonial controversy became public, Ristretto Roasters, who had been the restaurant's coffee supplier and also sold Saffron Colonial baked goods in its cafes, severed ties with the bakery. Other local companies have been reported to have withheld or stopped distributing their goods to Saffron Colonial, including Steven Smith Teamaker and Ex Novo Brewing.