A Landmark Restaurant Spot Still Isn't Cooking - Willamette Week

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ADDRESS: 3232 SE Division St.

YEARS BUILT: 1904

SQUARE FOOTAGE: 2,620 (two buildings)

MARKET VALUE: $1.78 million (two properties)

OWNER: 32 Division LLC, 3226 Division LLC

HOW LONG IT’S BEEN EMPTY: About 3 years

WHY IT’S EMPTY: COVID and the end of an empire

Prior to the pandemic, there were few better-known restaurants in Portland than Pok Pok, which, from its opening in 2005, popularized a brand of authentic Northern Thai food that won critical raves and, for a time, served as the base of an empire.

Chef-owner Andy Ricker expanded Pok Pok to six Portland locations and opened outposts in Brooklyn, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Ricker picked up a Michelin star, a James Beard Award and the adoration of critics along the way. He became a food-industry celebrity: A New York Times reporter followed him around Thailand, and WW put him on its cover (“Thai Hard,” Jan. 31, 2012).

Pok Pok in 2009 (Matt D’Annunzio)

Perhaps most famous for his fish-sauce chicken wings, Ricker won consistent praise for his insistence on deviating from standards. The New Yorker called his catfish stewed with fermented turmeric “so satisfyingly complete you could eat it every day.”

Ricker had begun closing Pok Pok locations before COVID-19 arrived—but the virus was the final stroke. After a brief foray into a delivery-only model, he closed up shop in June 2020. The ghost-kitchen company Reef took over the leases of Pok Pok’s two commissary kitchens and cut a deal to sell the chain’s remaining chicken wings and give the proceeds to charity. “Which they did, eventually,” Ricker tells WW.

Although it helped define Division Street as a restaurant destination for locals and tourists alike, the original Pok Pok property, a shambolic mashup of two single-family homes in the heart of the street’s most popular stretch, has stood empty since June 2020, even as nearby restaurants, bars and shops long ago roared back to life.

A little more than two years ago, on April 26, 2021, two limited liability companies, 32 Division LLC and 3226 Division LLC, managed by Sam Wampler, bought the two adjacent properties from Ricker for a combined $1.93 million.

Wampler says he spent about a year coming up with a plan for the properties, then eight months in the city permitting process. His hope for the property: a new food cart pod that would comprise 12 carts. “Parts of the existing houses would stay, and we plan to have more amenities than you would typically see,” Wampler says. (Ricker, the former owner, has moved to Thailand, he adds, and has no involvement in the project.)

Although he’s now finished with permitting, Wampler says it could be another year before he’s ready to welcome customers. “I haven’t done anything like this before,” he says, “so things are still a little up in the air.”

Sophie Peel contributed reporting to this story. Every week, WW examines one mysteriously vacant property in the city of Portland, explains why it’s empty, and considers what might arrive there next. Send addresses to newstips@wweek.com.

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