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For many first-time chefs in Portland, a food cart is seen as an affordable way to start getting paid for cooking what they want.

For Panting Li and husband Bailun Sun, it was a dream come true.

After graduating from Guang Dong University of Foreign Study in China, Li moved to the United States to join her husband. The reunited couple enjoyed a date at Crepe Neptune in Cannon Beach and searched for the best version of their “happy food.”

Two years ago, the couple started their first business together, wanting to share their love of crepes with their community. They opened their food cart, Boom Crepes, in downtown Portland.

“Food carts are very popular in Portland,” Li said. “Food carts are like a dream come true, and every food cart (owner) has a dream. Even if one doesn’t have the money to invest in a restaurant, they can in a food truck.”

The couple’s dream was dashed May 30, when they and other cart owners at the food cart pod on Southwest Alder Street and 10th Avenue were told they had 30 days to re-locate. The city’s largest and oldest food cart pod would close due to the construction of the Northwest’s first Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

They and their fellow cart owners would need to move. But where, and how?

City, nonprofit help out

In late June, with the backing of Mayor Ted Wheeler, Prosper Portland, an economic and urban development agency that supports small businesses, donated the use of a city-owned lot, formerly used by the U.S. Postal Service, near the North Park Blocks.

Thirty cart owners opted for the free temporary storage, and their towing costs were covered by a fundraising effort led by Friends of Green Loop, a nonprofit group trying to connect businesses and residents of the city, through a designated urban trail ringing downtown.

Many of the carts that had been on Alder Street plan to reopen a few blocks away, on Ankeny Street, as early as next month. Plans for the site, shown here in July, have changed a bit due to various factors. Photo courtesy of City of Portland

On July 17, three weeks after the carts were towed, a permanent home for the food carts was announced by Friends of Green Loop. The new site, which could open as early as January (see sidebar) will be five blocks away, on a small city-owned parcel at the south end of the North Park Blocks, bordered by Ankey and Burnside Streets.

In the meantime, Friends of the Green Loop started a Go Fund Me campaign which, according to co-director Keith Jones, raised about $180,000 to help pay for the infrastructure needed to support the carts at the new location.

Meanwhile Jones and his staff are meeting with the displaced cart owners weekly. A half-dozen have found new spots, but most of the carts that arrived in early summer, including Boom Crepes, are still in the city lot.

“Every week they are encouraged to find a spot,” Jones said. “But it’s slim pickings.” Most of the cart owners, he said, want to stay downtown, where space is scarce. He knows that several are waiting for a spot at the Ankeny site.

Though a new home is in the works, some cart owners are still upset about the limited amount of time they had to move and worried about their relationships with customers and the uncertainties of relocating when there isn’t a permanent location.

The food carts are a “part of [customer’s] life when they come to eat,” said Li, who liked the Alder Street location and feels bad that some customers are upset by the changes.

She also has enjoyed getting to know other owners over the past two years, saying they’ve become a community more than competition.

“Sometimes we help each other out, such as asking for change,” Li said. “We trade food, like I will have a gyro or a bowl. We’re more family and friends.”

Richard Tran, owner of Banh Mi Pho, had operated his cart at the Alder Street site for eight years and heard rumors about an investor buying the lot about five years ago. So, he thought the 30-day deadline to move was too short.

Danny Chan, owner of Sumo Sushi, agreed that one-month notice was too brief.

“There were over 40 food carts, at least two people per cart, which is almost 100 jobs, and almost 100 families,” said Chan, who also operates carts at the Portland International Airport and the Portland State University food pod. “Everybody is more stressed out, and more uncertain about things.”

Danny Chan, owner of Sumo Sushi, had to relocate one of the three carts he operates due to the closure of the Alder Street pod. He hopes that plans for a large new pod in the North Park Blocks can be revived. Photo by Jonathan House, Pamplin Media Group

Customers worry about the loss of the popular food cart pod and how it might affect Portland culture.

Teresa Lai, who eats at food carts at least once a month, finds the closure of the Alder site sad and surreal. She is worried that there will be fewer food options, and that Portland might lose its popular food destination status. She hopes it won’t affect cart owners.

Chan, of Sumo Sushi, is still hopeful that some carts eventually may move to the North Park Blocks. He thinks the area is a good place for tourism and looks forward to the family-oriented festivals that happen there.

In the meantime, he’s moved his Alder Street cart a few blocks east to the Third Avenue Food Pod, where he hopes to reopen once his family life settles down after the recent birth of a daughter.

Although the relocation will affect business owners in the pod, Chan is not upset about the opening of the 35-story Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

“Things change. Businesses open and businesses close,” Chan said. “I'm definitely happy about the hotel, and bringing in more business for the city,” Chan said. “I believe it will create more jobs, create more opportunity. [The city] just didn’t give us enough time to figure out the next step.”