Willamette Week, December 14, 2022 - Volume 49, Issue 6 - "Ghosted"

The average Portland eviction in October was for $3,000 in unpaid rent 6

Brown Hope’s board has not met in more than a year. 7

Jubitz Truck Stop got a sevenyear reprieve from Portland’s diesel ban. 8

Reef Technology aimed to turn parking lots into drone pads 13

Sir, this trailer is a Wendy’s . 15

The ingredients at Breakfast Burrito Fetish and Blessed Burrito Bowls are largely the same. 17

This year’s ScanFair featured a giant Viking ship 19

You can bid on photos of athletes who were at the World Athletic Championships in Eugene this past summer. 21

Ring in the winter solstice with cannoli sundaes and limoncello boozy shakes at Rally Pizza. 21

Northeast Portland Thai restaurant Yui gets its moniker from the owner’s childhood nickname, which means “chubby cheeks.” 22

You can get your eggnog slightly chunky as a slushie at Sleigh Love. 23

Temple balls are small spheres of aged, hand-rolled hashish. 24

Due to death threats, Oregon Shakespeare Festival artistic director Nataki Garrett is accompanied by private security in Ashland. 26

Hugh Grant thinks Love Actually has a “psychotic” screenplay 27

Last Wednesday, WW examined the improbable holiday phenomenon of Shroom House, a West Burnside storefront selling psychedelic mushrooms at retail (“Mushroom PopUp,” Dec. 7). Last Thursday, police raided the shop. Four men were arrested, including the shop’s alleged owner, Steven Tachie Jr., and the man said to be the shop’s manager, Jeremiahs Geronimo. In Multnomah County Circuit Court, attorneys for the accused said their clients didn’t know their business was illegal. According to a probable cause affidavit filed Dec. 9, police had been keeping tabs on the shop for a week. On Dec. 7, two cops “entered the store and bought over 30 grams of psilocybin mushrooms.” The mushrooms “presumptively tested positive to containing psilocybin.” Here’s what our readers had to say:

EJS, VIA WWEEK.COM: “I can’t believe they got busted. It’s not as if WW has been writing daily articles about the illegality of the operation. But thank goodness the police are cracking down on the mellowest and funnest drug in existence. Meanwhile, people are smoking meth in bus shelters and MAX stops with impunity. It’s kind of funny how Portland made all the worst drugs legal but is still putting people in jail for selling mushrooms.”

THE BOY IN THE BATH, VIA TWITTER: “Everyone deserves a fair shot at legalization, and this store was ripping off farmers and customers alike. We’re far from stable testing on cubensis for potency and contamination. This was a huge capitalist move in a flooded state, productionwise. They cashed in hard.”

MARYSUE HEALY, VIA WWEEK.COM: “Those shroomers stealing all those

catalytic converters, conducting dangerous drag races, stealing cars, smashing into retail shop windows, shooting at people. I feel so much safer knowing the public is safe from these microdosers.”

TROY STUTZMAN, VIA WWEEK.COM: “Fentanyl dealers are walking away. Shroom salesmen get $1.5 million bail!

“I gotta be lying in a pool of my own blood to get a cop to show up. The media narcs out a shroom shop and it’s raided like Miami Vice! Gimme a frickin’ break!”

DON CARLOS TOLEDO, VIA TWITTER: “Meanwhile, all across Oregon, you have cops preemptively announcing they won’t enforce Measure 114 regardless of the courts because, heaven fucking forfend, little Timmy not find an AR-15 with a 30-round clip left by Santa under the tree this year.”

RUTGERINOREGON, VIA WWEEK.COM: “The plan was to pop up, sell a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of shrooms, then disappear before the Portland Police Bureau got on the stick. It would have worked too if it wasn’t for those pesky reporters at WW.”

SHARIA MAYFIELD, VIA TWITTER: “Two words: jury nullification.

“This isn’t the prosecution flex people want. We want dangerous, assaultive, rapey, violent, thieving, destructive and abusive people prosecuted most.”

JIMBO, VIA WWEEK.COM: “Overthinking leads to stress. Underthinking leads to jail. They could have planned this out a little better.”

EDWARD STRATTON, VIA FACEBOOK: “I used to buy weed from a Chinese restaurant that sold raffle tickets for $40 each. Plausible deniability.”

DARLENE BARNES, VIA FACEBOOK: “I drove by there two days ago during the lunch hour, and the line was so long that people were reading books while waiting in line. I thought, wow, that place must have great food. Haha!”

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR must include the author's street address and phone number for verification. Letters must be 250 or fewer words.

Submit to: PO Box 10770, Portland OR, 97296 Email: mzusman@wweek.com

BY MARTY SMITH @martysmithxxx

When attending professional sporting events, whether at an arena or a stadium, I’ve noticed the down escalators are turned off before the end of the game— right when exiting spectators could use them most. Why? —Lee

Funny you should mention sporting events, Lee—I was just wrapping up my pitch for a human-on-primate wrestling extravaganza combining elements of American Gladiators and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? to create a reality game show called Can You Lick a Macaque? But I suppose that while I’m waiting for that check from Spike TV,* I might as well fill you in on the latest developments in escalator technology.

First is the discovery that escalators aren’t as safe as we once thought, especially when they’re turned off. There’s an old joke about how a broken escalator is just stairs, but it turns out that due to escalators’ larger steps, lack of landings and general failure to comply with building codes for stationary stairs, they are no longer considered a safe substitute for conventional staircases. You’ve been warned.

Speaking of operator error, remember “Stand right, walk left”? It turns out that the instruction to leave one side of the escalator open for folks who want to climb as they ride is also bogus: As The New York Times reported in 2017, loading each tread with two standees (no climbers allowed) would reduce escalator congestion by 30%. Getting folks to actually do this, of course, is about as likely as getting them to use a highway zipper merge correctly, but we can dream.

But let’s get back to your question (I’d hate for you to get the idea that I was stalling): Why turn off those arena escalators just when we need them most? It’s because the escalator owners have a responsibility to “manage congestion” (probably because most grisly escalator accidents seem to involve crowded descending escalators whose brakes fail due to overloading).

This congestion is likely to be at its worst when an event ends and everyone leaves at once. Now, at this point you could certainly post an armed safety inspector at each escalator to maintain the flow of passengers at a safe level. However, most operators find it easier and cheaper to just shut them all down and let the rubes—who, after all, have already been separated from their cash—figure it out on their own.

*Yeah, I know Spike shut down. You’re saying you were buying it up till then? Questions? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.

OREGON ELECTIONS DIRECTOR WAS FORCED

OUT: The Associated Press, quoting from a resignation letter by Oregon elections director Deborah Scroggin, suggested Dec. 12 that Scroggin was voluntarily leaving her job after 18 months because of an “extraordinarily challenging time for elections officials.” But reached by WW, Scroggin says the AP never interviewed her and that, in fact, her boss, Secretary of State Shemia Fagan, asked for her resignation. Scroggin says she never would have quit, despite rampant misinformation from election deniers, and is disappointed to leave: “I respect the secretary’s vision and decision and understand we have different approaches.” Fagan spokesman Ben Morris confirms Fagan asked Scroggin to go. “Secretary Fagan’s priority for the Elections Division is that it will be a customer service division,” Morris says. “This priority was repeatedly met with resistance by Ms. Scroggin.”

PORTLAND SEES THIRD SCHOOL SHOOTING IN TWO

MONTHS: In what has become a disturbing trend, a 16-year-old student at Cleveland High School was hospitalized after being shot Monday afternoon outside the school building. The school went into lockdown and students were sent home early. It’s the third time in the past two months that a student has been injured in a shooting outside a Portland Public Schools building. Three Jefferson High School students were injured earlier this year in two separate after-school shootings just outside the high school—one in a car a block from the school and two others outside the school’s gym. Classes were canceled at Cleveland on Tuesday. “As gunfire rattles another PPS community, I urge our community to come together and work collectively towards resolving the social problems plaguing our neighborhoods,” Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero said in a statement released Tuesday morning. This is the sixth school shooting in Portland in 2022, according to the national K-12 School Shooting Database maintained by independent researcher David Riedman, which counts the number of times “a gun is brandished, is fired, or a bullet hits school property.” There were two in 2021, and one in each of the prior two years. The rise in shootings reflects a national trend. In a September presentation, Multnomah County health officials identified “exposure to violence” on social media and “an increase in high capacity and fully automatic guns” as “emerging themes” in Portland-area gun violence.

ADVOCATES QUESTION JOINT OFFICE DIRECTOR HIRING PLAN: The advocacy group Shelter Now is pushing back against what its leaders say is a hasty process for hiring a new permanent director for the Joint Office of Homeless Services, the joint city-county venture that will spend $260 million this year. Longtime JOHS director Marc Jolin stepped down earlier this year, and his interim replacement, Shannon Singleton, abruptly left in November. Multnomah County announced that its recruitment process for the director, who reports to County Chair Deborah Kafoury, would close Dec. 16, two weeks before County Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson succeeds Kafoury as chair. In a Dec. 5 email to Kafoury and Vega Pederson, Shelter Now chair Sean Green asked officials to “extend the search time frames, engage diverse community stakeholders, and improve communication and transparency.” Green repeated that request in public testimony last week. So far, crickets. “It’s frustrating that there’s not more involvement from the community in the process,” Green tells WW. Spokesman Denis Theriault says the county launched a “wide, deep and thoughtful engagement process” in late summer, including Green’s group and many others in surveys. “It’s possible the deadline for applications will be extended, pending a review of the initial batch of applicants,” Theriault adds. “We expect stakeholders will continue to play a role in providing perspectives as interviews start.”

DEMOCRATS

REMAIN MUM ON FTX GIFT:

Two weeks after WW ’s initial inquiry, the Democratic Party of Oregon still won’t say whether it plans to return a $500,000 contribution from Nishad Singh, former director of engineering at FTX, the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange run by Sam Bankman-Fried. Bankman-Fried, who bankrolled Democratic candidates across the county, including Oregon congressional hopeful Carrick Flynn, was arrested Monday in the Bahamas and on charges of lying to investors, wire fraud, and conspiracy to defraud the United States. He also violated campaign finance laws, according to federal prosecutors, by making political contributions to both parties under the names of “co-conspirators.” In truth, that cash came from customer funds misappropriated by FTX affiliate Alameda Research, prosecutors say. Democratic Party of Oregon executive director Brad Martin declined to comment. Records at the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office show the DPO has $473,000 in its account.

SECRETARY OF STATE SHEMIA FAGAN

Source: Multnomah County Circuit Court

Living on a Cliff

BY LUCAS MANFIELD lmanfield@wweek.com

As pandemic-related tenant protections fall away, Portland evictions have skyrocketed. Since August, the number in Multnomah County has easily eclipsed pre-pandemic totals, rising above 700 per month.

In April 2020, evictions plummeted after the state issued a near blanket ban. This October, Oregon’s “safe harbor” law stopping the eviction of tenants who have applied for rent assistance ended. It had become less useful anyway— the state’s rental assistance program ran out of funding in August.

At a recent legislative hearing, Cameron Harrington, director of policy at the housing advocacy organization Neighborhood Partnerships, characterized the recent spike as a “dramatic cliff that renters are falling off.”

In 2019, Multnomah County Circuit Court recorded about 500 eviction cases each month. By this October, that number was 820. A vast majority, 92% in October, were for nonpayment of rent, according to an analysis of county court records by the Eviction Defense and Diversion Evaluation team at Portland State University.

This demonstrates a “direct relationship” between the loss of tenant protections and people being forced out of their homes, says Becky Straus, the managing attorney at the Oregon Law Center who provides legal assistance to people facing eviction.

One of the biggest eviction filers was Stark Firs Management, a company that manages 75 buildings in east county. It has 2,000

units. So far this year, it has filed 235 eviction cases, according to WW’s analysis of eviction records.

Moe Farroud, its owner, says nearly a quarter of his tenants were behind on rent—up from only 2 % to 3% prior to the pandemic. “These people thought they could live for free,” he says. “At the end of the day, it’s very sad.”

Not everyone who ends up in court loses their home. Some negotiate payment plans. Still, court records likely underestimate the total number of people displaced due to their inability to pay. Landlords are required to give tenants a “termination of tenancy” warning, which no one tracks. Often, tenants simply pack up and leave before legal paperwork is filed.

If they do decide to fight, they ’ll end up in the Crane Room on the second floor of the Multnomah County Courthouse.

On a recent Friday morning, Judge Pro Tem Monica Herranz worked down her list of cases, encouraging tenants and landlords to make deals. If they don’t, the case goes to trial.

That rarely happens. There’s a “high likelihood you will lose,” Herranz admonished one man, and warned him he’d have to pay his landlord’s attorney fees if he did.

Like many of the people in that courtroom, 37-year-old Audrey Hannon made a deal. She had a small clothing design business, but it was struggling. Her $745 monthly rent had been paid off

by rent assistance programs for years, court records show. Now, her landlord says, she owes more than $3,000.

She told the judge she would pay it back by the following Monday.

Hannon didn’t have it—she planned to ask the county for help. As she walked out of the courtroom with her boyfriend, she expressed frustration that her management company, Central City Concern, wasn’t keeping up its side of the bargain. She cited nuisance neighbors, broken appliances and clogged toilets. “They’re not fixing anything,” she said.

A spokesperson for the nonprofit affordable housing provider says it can’t comment on individual tenants, but that “all of our [maintenance] requests have been managed in a timely fashion.”

Here’s the state of evictions in Multnomah County:

MULTNOMAH COUNTY

EVICTIONS

Three biggest filers of evictions in 2022: 1. Legacy Property Management

2. Stark Firs Management Inc.

3. Hayden Island Manufactured Home Community

Average owed in October cases of unpaid rent: $3,000

Source: Lisa Bates, Portland State University Professor

Oregon Health Authority COVID support (2020-23) $825,000

Oregon Health Authority COVID equity (2020-21) $650,000

Oregon Community Foundation (2020-2022) $336,000

Portland Housing Bureau $270,000

Shelby Cullom Davis Foundation (2020) $250,000

Portland Office of Community & Civic Life $200,000

Meyer Memorial Trust (2021) $125,000

As WW first reported Dec. 8, Gregory McKelvey, board president of Brown Hope, has placed the racial justice nonprofit’s founder and CEO, Cameron Whitten, on paid leave.

That move was surprising in light of the men’s close relationship. McKelvey and Whitten became friends after they both spoke at a rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders back in 2016. They did a 22-episode podcast together, Your Neighborhood Black Friends. And when Whitten needed somebody to lead the board of Brown Hope, which he founded, he turned to McKelvey.

“I’ve always considered him a friend,” McKelvey says, “and still do.”

But after consulting Brown Hope management and attorneys, McKelvey moved to suspend his friend for still-unspecified misconduct. Under advice from counsel, McKelvey declined to spec-

ify why Whitten was suspended. Here’s what we know:

THE GOAL: Brown Hope aims to empower Portland’s Black community through social gatherings, mutual aid, job training at Blackstreet Bakery, COVID outreach and, as most recently announced, a guaranteed monthly basic income for 25 Black individuals for three years.

THE FUNDING: Brown Hope’s fundraising exploded after George Floyd’s murder in May 2020. It had annual revenue of just $39,000 in 2018 and, according to its most recent filings, none in 2019. But in a little over six months in 2020, it brought in more than $3 million, some of it taxpayer dollars. Below are some key grants and contracts gleaned from public records, with

Portland Clean Energy Fund (2021) $112,000

The Collins Foundation (2021) $100,000

Multnomah County (2021) $100,000

the year specified, if known.

THE PROBLEM: Transparency.

It seems unlikely that McKelvey would seek to suspend Whitten without significant cause. McKelvey and Whitten confirmed that Brown Hope’s board, which under Oregon law is responsible for the organization’s legal and financial well-being, has not met since October 2021.

Brown Hope is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit required to file an annual federal tax return. Its most recent return, for calendar year 2020, was filed in

March 2022, so publicly available information about the nonprofit’s finances is not current. Although it remains unclear what McKelvey believes Whitten has done, government agencies and nonprofits want to know their money is spent efficiently and in ways that can be tracked.

Whitten says he’ll be able to disclose more after a Dec. 14 board meeting. Meanwhile, as The Oregonian first reported, the Oregon Department of Justice is preparing to investigate.

NIGEL JAQUISS.

The average eviction in Multnomah County is for $3,000 in unpaid rent.

FOR BOOK SMARTING

Evan Segura

legal in controlled, therapeutic settings?

No. If you ask the average person in Oregon what Measure 109 did, most don’t know. The Oregon Health Authority has really botched the public education opportunity they’ve had the last two years. People are so confused about what is going to happen here. They’re going to go to the next Shroom House that opens up and think they’re doing something completely fine.

What should we anticipate in January, when Measure 109 really kicks in and the state starts accepting applications for growers, service centers and trip facilitators?

For six weeks, Shroom House sold psychedelic mushrooms from a shop on West Burnside. It wasn’t a psilocybin speakeasy. Shroom House advertised with seven signs, including a billboard across the street. It tweeted news stories from WW and others.

Thousands flocked to the store, some waiting six hours to buy what has lately been hailed as a wonder drug. Rigorous academic research shows that psilocybin can help with depression, alcohol abuse, and post traumatic stress disorder. And tripping is fun.

Shroom House on Burnside was the company’s second store. It has another one in Vancouver, B.C., where at least five shroom shops operate in violation of Canadian law. The holiday wonderland vanished early last Thursday, when police raided Shroom House, arresting the owner, a hip-hop artist from Canada named Tony Tachie, and several employees. A judge set Tachie’s bail at $1.5 million, quashing the notion of a shroom-friendly Stumptown. So, what did we learn here? We asked Evan Segura, former president of the Portland Psychedelic Society, an all-volunteer organization that seeks to educate people about the power and potential of psychedelics. Segura stepped down from the top job just a few months ago and remains a board member of the society. ANTHONY EFFINGER.

What was Shroom House’s endgame? Were they expecting to stay open forever because the cops are busy with other things, or because Portland is tolerant of psychedelics?

I think they were doing two things. They were looking to make a massive profit, which they did. And I think they wanted to push the envelope and create a decriminalization culture in Portland the same way they did in Vancouver, B.C. I think Shroom House did it a little too early in Portland.

What did we learn from Shroom House’s run? The really important takeaway from Shroom House is that we saw thousands of people, some driving 10 hours to get this medicine. I think a lot of people are going to see this and say, “You know, we can do this the right way.”

Are we not doing it the right way with Measure 109, the 2020 initiative that made psilocybin

There are going to be huge headlines about how now you can legally access psilocybin. But there will be an asterisk, or fine print, saying that it has to be at a regulated, licensed service center and it will cost $3,000. But a lot of people are going to read the big shiny letters. And so there’s going to be additional confusion.

You think it’s going to cost $3,000 to take mushrooms one time?

On average, I think it’s going to cost $2,000. Facilitators invest $10,000 in training. Most of them are already licensed therapists who are used to making $120 an hour. They’ll be working eight hours straight. So, that’s almost $1,000. Then you have the profits that the service center needs to make all of their overhead costs, plus taxes, regulation and licensing fees. There will be scholarships or sliding scales from some of the cooler service centers, but not nearly enough to meet demand.

What about insurance?

I think we’re at least three years away from insurance companies providing this for people. And even when it happens, it’s going to be like high-class, expensive insurance companies that are going to add this as a benefit, the same way that most insurance companies don’t offer ketamine-assisted psychotherapy.

If you could change Oregon’s psilocybin program, what would you do?

Decriminalization would come first and foremost, making sure that no additional people were prosecuted for using these safe and effective medicines. I would decriminalize cultivation, making sure that it’s OK for anybody to grow their own medicine, the same way we can with cannabis. And I would decriminalize foraging. Oregon is home to some of the most potent psychedelic mushrooms in the world. They grow in public parks. If more people were able to identify them, they could get their medicine straight from the ground when the rain comes.

So where do we go from here?

The new Colorado law allows growing and gifting. I think we’re going to see the same battle we saw early in the cannabis days, where you could buy a piece of pizza and get gifted an eighth of cannabis. In Colorado, you’re going to be able to buy a book or buy a piece of art and be gifted plant medicine by a friend or somebody running an “art gallery” that is distributing medicine in a safe way. It’ll be like a $50 sticker. You can find people doing that in Portland right now, at farmers markets.

Address: 3747 SE Hawthorne Blvd.

Year built: 1954 Square footage: 5,160 Market value: $2.6 million

Owner: Candace Goodman How long it’s been empty: 2 years Why it’s empty: Jeff Bezos

When gourmet grocer Pastaworks announced plans to end its 32-year run on Hawthorne Boulevard in 2016, another Portland institution stepped in to take its place.

Powell’s Books announced plans to merge the Pastaworks space with its stores on both sides of the grocer. The resulting 23,000-plus square feet of space would be a third of the size of Powell’s downtown flagship.

It never happened. Nancy Chapin, an administrator for the Hawthorne Boulevard Business Association, says the space needed an earthquake retrofit but the bookseller got cold feet. Powell’s did not respond to a request for comment.

In 2020, the bookseller closed its next-door Home & Garden specialty store for good, citing the “onslaught” of COVID and the continuing “evolution” of retail.

(The following year, its owner, Emily Powell, told The New York Times the company was focusing on improving its online presence. “If we can’t solve our internet problems, we’re probably dead in the water,” she said.)

Meanwhile, the building’s owners have struggled to fill the storefronts left vacant by the retreating bookseller.

The old Pastaworks shop sat empty until 2020, when an upscale secondhand clothing shop from Japan snapped it up. (For sale: a $1,199 pair of Balenciaga sneakers and $79 designer T-shirts.) Another specialty grocer, its walls lined with artisan chocolates, exotic bitters and Himalayan salts, moved into the small storefront next door.

But the abandoned Powell’s remains an eyesore—and needs a lot of work.

“Its windows have been broken three times,” says Debbie Thomas, the building’s real estate agent. “They finally just boarded them up, and it looks awful.”

The owners spray-painted the boards black after they were covered in graffiti. “It just keeps getting trashed again,” says Chapin, who made note of the building while leading officials from the city’s new anti-blight office on a recent tour down Hawthorne.

There are other reasons for hope. Thomas says she’s close to inking a deal with a new tenant: a retailer out of Salem. She’s keeping mum on the details: “I don’t want to jinx it.” LUCAS MANFIELD.

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.

A psilocybin advocate considers the lessons from Shroom House.

The best-laid plans of Powell’s Books go awry on Hawthorne.

COURTESY

EVAN SEGURA

PAGE TURNED: A new tenant is expected to move in next year.

Grease Traps

Just as Portland demands the use of biodiesel, Oregon’s biggest producer is shipping off coveted cooking oil.

BY ANTHONY EFFINGER aeffinger@wweek.com

In Portland, grease is gold.

Last week, the City Council passed a resolution that will gradually ban the sale of petroleum-based diesel fuel within city limits starting in 2024, a national first. By 2030, the city will require stations to sell only diesel made from low-carbon, renewable sources, such as used cooking oil or animal tallow, aka grease.

It’s a noble goal. Diesel burned in vehicles and construction equipment accounts for about 14% of Portland’s carbon emissions, according to the city, and it creates black soot that coats Oregon’s glaciers and causes them to melt faster.

And, unlike gasoline, diesel has substitutes: biodiesel and so-called renewable diesel, a similar fuel that can be made from all sorts of nonpetroleum feedstocks, such as waste from fish canneries. (Environmentalists prefer the term “nonconventional” diesel because making the stuff requires the addition of hydrogen, which often comes from fracked methane.)

Unfortunately, just before the city took a big step forward in requiring the use of diesel alternatives, Oregon took a big step back in terms of supply.

Last month, Finnish oil giant Neste said it had agreed to buy the biggest source of biodiesel in the state: a plant in Salem that processes used cooking

oil into biodiesel, and the system it has for collecting the oil from restaurants.

The plant was built by a Portland-based biodiesel company, SeQuential, which was bought by California-based Crimson Renewable Energy in 2018. The acquisition by Neste would be fine fuelwise—except the company says it plans to shut down the biodiesel plant.

“Neste does not produce biodiesel,” says Satu Vapaakallio, a director at Neste, in a statement to WW “Therefore, Crimson will cease biodiesel production at its SeQuential Salem facility just prior to closing of the sale to Neste.” The sale is scheduled to close next month.

Through acquisitions like SeQuential, Neste is building a supply system to feed its mammoth new renewable diesel refinery in Martinez, Calif., near San Francisco. That means Oregon, once a biodiesel producer, will become a grease colony for California, shipping used cooking oil south and likely receiving shipments of refined renewable diesel coming back north after value is added.

“They just want the grease collection piece,” says one Oregon fuel supplier who declined to be named in print for fear of reprisals by Neste. “They are in the business to make money.”

With

mandating a transition to cleaner fuels, businesses selling diesel fuel in Portland are feeling squeezed.

“Oregon has lost a critical local source of low-carbon biodiesel,” says Mark Fitz, president of Portland-based Star Oilco. “In time, we hope the market will adjust, but losing SeQuential as a supplier furthers our belief that the city’s new mandate is not currently achievable.”

When it comes to carbon pollution, locally made biodiesel is better than imported renewable diesel. To see why, one has to understand “carbon intensity.”

Believe it or not, it’s possible to calculate how much carbon it takes to produce a fuel, ship it and burn it, down to how many miles it travels and whether it came on a ship, train or truck. This requires a vast spreadsheet developed by the Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago.

make or peddle dirty fuels (like petroleum diesel).

Recycled fuels get the lowest scores because the spreadsheet doesn’t count anything before it becomes waste. Virgin vegetable oils get clobbered because the spreadsheet accounts for all the fertilizer needed to grow the plants they come from, tractor gas to harvest them, and train power to ship them to Oregon from, say, Iowa. Biodiesel, meantime, starts at zero when it’s used cooking oil sitting in a barrel outside Fire on the Mountain or Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen.

“There is only so much used cooking oil in the world,” Wind says. “It’s gold.”

Local used cooking oil is even better because it adds relatively little carbon intensity when it gets shipped to Salem, and then back to Portland as biodiesel.

CI is expressed as grams of carbon dioxide (or the equivalent) per megajoule of energy produced. Some of SeQuential’s biodiesel has a CI as low as 11.6, according to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. By comparison, regular diesel has a CI of 100.7. Neste’s renewable diesel, made from used cooking oil at a refinery in Singapore, goes as low as 24.3. But that’s still more than double SeQuential’s best score, so it’s not a perfect substitute.

The city says all biodiesel and renewable diesel sold here will be required to have a carbon intensity equal to or less than 40 starting in 2024. In 2021, the biodiesel available in Oregon had an average CI of 41.84, according to DEQ estimates, just missing the city’s threshold.

The renewable diesel did better, scoring an average of 37, but after imports and exports, only 19.3 million gallons stayed in the state in the first half of 2022, according to DEQ. That’s compared with 42 million gallons of biodiesel and, for perspective, 378.5 million gallons of petroleum diesel.

In other words, an already-scarce resource is being shipped out of state—and won’t come back with the same environmental value. Mileage matters.

“ With SeQuential leaving, we’re concerned there isn’t enough low-carbon fuel to meet the city’s low CI standard,” says Greg Peden, a lobbyist for the Oregon Fuels Association. “The average CI score on a quarterly basis is about 42. But that’s an average, meaning that half is above.”

The city says it will keep an eye on supply and demand and be ready to adapt.

“This transition will be managed through a technical advisory committee, which will meet regularly beginning next year and through 2030 to monitor supply, price and carbon intensity, and make recommendations to the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability,” Commissioner Carmen Rubio said in a statement.

One big fuel seller got a well-cloaked reprieve.

Much of the city’s new ordinance will not apply to any retailer who has “(1) a minimum of 120,000 gallons of on-site storage; and (2) a minimum of nine truck fueling lanes,” according to the text the City Council passed last week.

“It gives me Excel nightmares,” says Cory-Ann Wind, manager of the Oregon Clean Fuels Program. “You describe every step of what it takes to make, transfer and combust a fuel.”

Wind had to hire someone with a Ph.D. to handle the spreadsheet. But it works, and Wind’s department can compute the carbon intensity, or “CI,” for all the fuels used in Oregon. The state has its own rules for calculating CI. It keeps track of what’s being burned, down to the gallon. Businesses that produce or sell fuels (like biodiesel) that exceed state standards get credits they can then sell for cash to businesses that

Only one retailer fits that description: Jubitz Truck Stop, a 27-acre truckapalooza in North Portland. An Oregon institution, Jubitz has a hotel, a medical clinic, two restaurants and a movie theater. According to the ordinance, it won’t have to meet any of the city’s requirements until 2030, when it will have to sell 99% renewable diesel or biodiesel. How it gets there is up to Jubitz.

When it comes to transitioning to renewable fuels, size appears to matter. Smaller fuel sellers will have to endure the vice of new rules and less supply. Jubitz won’t, at least until 2030.

“ We are the largest retailer of biodiesel in Portland today,” Jubitz executive vice president Matthew Jubitz tells WW. “We continue to be committed to offering lower CI content fuel, including renewable diesel, when available and economically feasible at our nine truck fueling lanes.”

EXEMPTED: Jubitz Truck Stop may keep selling regular diesel a while longer.

MICK

“There is only so much used cooking oil in the world. It’s gold.”

Joe Cantrell

Growing up in Cherokee County, Oklahoma, we young men, raised on “patriotic” propaganda and military veteran elders, were ready to go when Vietnam began. On my first night in Vietnamese coastal fishing waters, we ran over a sampan with an extended family of Vietnamese aboard. The captain joked about it. “Holy shit,” I thought, “we’re doing to them what was done to us (Native Americans), but this time I’m the bad guy.”

In 1986, after two tours of duty and 15 years of post-military photojournalism around Asia, I was ready to move back. I’d never been to Oregon but had two siblings here. I visited, bought a used car on 82nd Avenue, and drove 8,500 miles around the country looking for the right place.

Portland had this sacred land and coast, the rivers, Powell’s, Forest Park, and a beautiful downtown. The daily papers did not inspire. They were too comfortable with themselves and the status quo. Major scoops here often appeared first in The Washington Post and The New York Times, but there was one very bright local luminance, Willamette Week.

WW had real reporting, community, Katherine Dunn (!!!). It was a real aortic connection to what was actually happening and, thank goodness, no obsessing over sports. It was an important factor in my choosing Portland as my “American” home. Online blather may have, I’m afraid, diminished WW’s overall prominence, but it’s as relevant as ever and better, more dependable, and far less corporate compromised than anything else we have.

I’m proud to be able to support this paper.

A Generous Pour

BY NIGEL JAQUISS njaquiss@wweek.com

John Brown and Mark Meek both use the same word to describe the price the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission paid for the Canby property where the agency will build its new headquarters.

That word is “egregious.”

Earlier this year, the OLCC closed on a 33.75acre parcel, paying $40.78 million for the raw land.

As recently as 2019, the agency told lawmakers that the project—including land and construction of the headquarters and a liquor warehouse—would cost $62.5 million. Today, that cost is estimated at $145.8 million.

Of course, steel, lumber and labor costs have jumped in the past three years, but OLCC officials acknowledge that much of the big increase resulted from the soaring cost of the land.

The final price for the dirt that the OLCC purchased was nearly triple what it expected to pay. And that makes Brown, chairman of the state’s Public Lands Advisory Committee, furious.

He thinks the state panicked and overpaid for the land, nearly doubling what he says was an already generous appraisal that valued the property at $22.1 million. The appraisal was made only after the state had already agreed to the higher purchase price.

Brown joined the PLAC, which advises the state on real estate transactions valued at more than $100,000, over a decade ago. He and Meek, a Democratic state representative from Milwaukie who also sits on the committee, reacted strongly when the transaction came in front of them earlier this year.

Brown, a commercial real estate broker and former appraiser with three decades of experience, says the OLCC deal is by far the worst he’s seen the state make—and it’s the only time he’s voted no on a transaction.

“This deal was an anomaly, but that doesn’t make it right,” Brown says. “How many kids sleeping under bridges could have had a home if we didn’t piss away that money?”

The OLCC generates the third-most revenue for state government after income taxes and the Oregon Lottery. Nearly every bottle of hard liquor sold in the state goes through the agency’s Milwaukie warehouse or a satellite warehouse nearby.

Chris Mayton, the OLCC’s distilled spirits director, says that soon after he joined the agency in 2018, it became clear to him that its ancient, 230,000-square-foot warehouse, with its rickety, Rube Goldberg-like agglomeration of conveyor belts, was too small.

“I started raising red flags right away,” he recalls, “because I started forecasting out five

years, and I said, ‘Hey, we’re going to be in trouble.’”

That trouble: Oregon’s growing population and thirst for liquor would overtake the agency’s capacity. (The OLCC ships about 327,000 cases of liquor per month and turns over its inventory seven times a year.) Inadequate warehouse space would undercut the agency’s ability to maximize revenue.

The agency hired the consulting firm Deloitte to test Mayton’s perception. In a 2020 study, the firm agreed that the OLCC needed a new, larger warehouse somewhere along Interstate 5 and close to the metro area, where most sales occur.

Originally, the plan was to buy a ready-made facility. But Mayton says that when the agency sought permission from Gov. Kate Brown and the Oregon Department of Administrative Services to move forward, it was instructed to break the proposition in two: buy the land first and build the headquarters and warehouse afterward.

The rationale, Mayton says: “equity and inclusion.” If the state controlled the construction contract, it could control who got the work.

Brown spokesman Charles Boyle says the governor’s office wasn’t involved and directed questions to DAS.

Department spokeswoman Bryanna Duke confirms the agency moved the OLCC away

from a purpose-built project, which DAS thought “had too many legal complications and risks.”

“The decision was made to address these risks by purchasing the property instead,” Duke says. “Not only did this approach reduce the legal risks, but it also aligned better with the state’s procurement policies and goals. One of those goals is to support inclusion of Oregon’s minority- and women-owned businesses in state projects.”

The change delayed the process and provided prospective sellers with useful information: They knew what the state wanted and that it was very keen to buy.

Meek, who works in residential real estate, says the state telegraphed desperation to sellers, one of whom, national real estate developer Trammell Crow, had already been in talks with the state about constructing a purpose-built headquarters in Canby.

The state began looking at properties in 2021. Initially, it identified four that met the state’s criteria. Two sold (at undisclosed prices), one proved unsuitable. The fourth was a Trammell Crow property the state had identified earlier as a possible site for the project.

The state tentatively agreed to Trammell Crow’s price in March 2022. It then obtained the appraisal in May that valued the land much lower than the agreed purchase price. A month later, state agencies presented PLAC with some disturbing numbers as they sought the oversight panel’s approval.

Just two years before, Trammell Crow had purchased the land it would sell to the OLCC, for less than $6 a square foot. After making modest improvements, it would sell that same property to the state for the equivalent of $27 a square foot, vastly more than any comparable sale nearby.

“ We became hostage to the market and that location,” Meek says. “We were the only buyer who would pay that price for it.”

At the June 2 PLAC meeting, Brown and Meek, joined by another member, took the unusual step of asking the state to seek a significant reduction in Trammell Crow’s price.

“It’s absolutely the worst deal the state has done since I’ve been on the committee,” Meek says. “There was no urgency to make that decision to buy now. We are not losing money now.”

The state asked Trammell Crow for a better price. The result was unsurprising. “They said pack sand,” Brown says. The deal closed in July.

OLCC officials acknowledge the price for the Canby property was far more than they had hoped to pay.

But Mayton says the opportunity cost of remaining in a warehouse that’s too small is far more than the premium the state paid.

“If you are just looking at the 33 acres and saying, ‘You spent that much money?’ I’d say it was crazy, too,” Mayton says. “But looking at the land vacancy rate, the total project, and what it means to the state of Oregon, it was absolutely a good business decision.”

The OLCC is currently preparing the bidding process to hire a construction manager and hopes to turn the first shovel of dirt in February 2024.

Critics say the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission paid way too much for its new headquarters property.

MIXOLOGY: Nearly every shot of liquor served in a Portland barroom passes through the OLCC’s warehouses.

THOMAS TEAL

“We became hostage to the market and that location.”

BY SOPHIE PEEL speel@wweek.com PHOTOGRAPHS BY MICK HANGLAND-SKILL

None of these places really existed—at least, not in the way people usually think of restaurants. They were “ghost kitchens,” where one or more cooks prepare as many as seven kinds of cuisine at commissary kitchens, brick-and-mortar restaurants and, in some cases, food trucks. At the edge of an empty parking lot. All for delivery only.

On apps like Uber Eats and Grubhub, ghost kitchens overwhelmed Portland’s brick-andmortar restaurants floundering in the pandemic.

“They were an invasive species that came into a native area, and the local ecosystem can’t compete,” says Micah Camden, who founded Little Big Burger and Kinnamons, brick-and-mortar restaurants with locations from the Pearl District to North Carolina. “It’s like when a mosquito hitches a ride on a cargo ship and lands in the bayou and just completely devastates everything native.”

As of last year, Multnomah County authorities say, there were between 75 and 100 ghost kitchens in Portland. An Uber spokesperson tells WW there are “tens of thousands of virtual restaurant storefronts” on Uber Eats nationwide.

And in this city, more than a quarter of the ghost kitchens appear to be run by one company: a privately held Miami-based corporation called Reef Technology, which likes to put ghost kitchens in trailers, or vessels as it calls them, and place them in parking lots around the city.

The story of how Reef’s ghost kitchens arrived in Portland—and why they might not be long for the Rose City—is an international tale of hubris built on hunger and, it seems, some faulty assumptions.

Reef had what looked like a can’t-miss idea: convenience and comfort on a massive scale, built around the centrality of downtown parking lots.

But three years after it tried to reinvent downtown, Reef appears to be in retreat.

Multnomah County Health Department records obtained by WW list 23 permitted locations of Reef kitchens and trailers. WW visited each. What we found was that Reef had removed or shut down the trailers at 15 of its locations.

“ What’s happening with Reef sounds pretty textbook spot-on to what happened with WeWork,” says Alex Murray, assistant professor of management at the University of Oregon’s Lundquist College of Business. “It’s this uncontrollable growth in scale after a large infusion of capital without the operational know-how to implement said promises made up front.”

Portland has long been eager to repurpose parking lots, to prioritize transit and pedestrians. Pi-

oneer Courthouse Square was once a parking lot that became a brick-lined public plaza in 1984 because of this urban goal.

The city is still eager to undo its decades of parking construction, especially as the pandemic gutted the central city of its workforce and patrons. In the early 2000s, the city rezoned downtown so developers could erect buildings on surface parking.

“The more things you can do with a given square foot of dirt, the better,” says Sightline Institute researcher Michael Andersen. “When a whole city block is dedicated to storing cars, that’s a little bit useful. But if there were a bunch of transactions happening on that lot, every hour, then that will show up in the tax rolls of the city.”

Into this setting stepped Reef Technology and its co-founder, Ari Ojalvo, an entrepreneur who attended Northwestern University and ran

a parking management company with modest funding called ParkJockey.

The company rebranded itself as Reef in 2019 upon buying out three of the nation’s biggest parking companies. The following year, Reef received $700 million in funding from its overseas investors, Softbank and a sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi. Reef claims to be the largest parking management company in the United States, with most of its presence in large cities.

One of its purchases was Vancouver, B.C.based Impark, which owns City Center Parking in Portland. For decades, City Center was locally owned by the Goodman family, which had a near monopoly on downtown parking management.

When Reef purchased Impark in 2019, it took over leases and contracts to operate those parking lots, even though the Goodmans and other property owners retained ownership of the underlying real estate. That meant Reef acquired contracts to operate more than 200 surface parking lots and garages in the city center, making Reef the largest manager of private parking in Portland.

Meanwhile, it placed more than 20 ghost kitchen trailers on other properties across the city.

DECOMMISSIONED:

Eight Reef trailers no longer in operation sit in an Old Town parking lot.

Since 2019, Reef has been collecting parking fees from downtown commuters and, at different parking lots, cooking food under brands like Wow Bao and Rebel Wings. One business was conventional, the other futuristic.

Reef said the plan was to combine the parking lots and ghost kitchens—plus a lot more.

Executives sketched a vision in which parking

CONTINUED ON PAGE 15

A

“It’s like when a mosquito hitches a ride on a cargo ship and lands in the bayou and just completely devastates everything native.”

DUMPSTER IRE

Multnomah County Health Department records obtained by WW since late 2019 show that county inspectors have had repeated issues with overflowing trash, rat infestations and unsanitary conditions at Reef Technology-managed parking lots downtown that held a collection of food carts, including one or two Reef trailers.

Dozens of emails show county inspectors had a difficult time figuring out who to contact at Reef because of high turnover.

On Dec. 18, 2019, inspector Jamie Pauluk emailed her colleagues about an inspection she’d done at a Reef trailer in Slabtown. She wrote that the manager, Kevin O’Connell, became “quite agitated” with her when she pointed out noncompliance issues.

I let him know that if he looks underneath the cart that he would see that it was gray water because of all the tiny bits of food and the smell,” Pauluk wrote. “He threw up his hands and muttered, ‘You people are too much! I need a minute!’ and he proceeded to go outside to cool off (I assume).”

Pauluk later wrote in the email: “If [O’Connell] is struggling to organize even four units downtown, what is it going to look like when there are 20 units across Multnomah County?”

She found out.

By June 2022, Pauluk sent a video she had shot of 15 rats scurrying under a dumpster at a Reef lot on Southwest 3rd Avenue. She and her colleagues debated whether to open another case against Reef.

They recently removed the dumpsters at all of their lots to switch to a new garbage service, and all lots were without dumpsters and trash service for about a month,” Pauluk wrote. She added that trash was stacked where the dumpsters used to be. “I am guessing this is what contributed to the recent increase in rat activity.”

Dozens of pictures taken by county inspectors at Reef parking lots since late 2019 show mounds of trash overflowing the dumpsters at the downtown locations. Reef managers blamed homeless people for rummaging through the refuse, and other restaurants for dumping trash.

On July 21 of this year, the health department threatened civil penalties if Reef didn’t exterminate the rats at its parking lot on Southwest 3rd Avenue. It was the final warning; the county had instructed Reef to do so more than a month previously.

By this fall, Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office was so alarmed by Reef ghost kitchens and their potential to take business away from local restaurants that it asked the City Attorney’s Office to conduct a legal analysis into possible new rules for ghost kitchens.

“ That includes whether or not they can be required to have walk-up service,” says mayoral aide Sam Adams, “and whether or not we have the ability to require disclosures so that people can make informed choices.”

While the analysis applies to all ghost kitchens, the city says its primary concern is Reef. “They just popped up everywhere,” Adams says. SOPHIE PEEL.

PILE-UP: Photos taken by county health officials show trash overflow at Reef-managed parking lots on Southwest 3rd, 4th and 5th avenues.

Reef properties became a headache for county health inspectors.

PHOTOS COURTESY MULTNOMAH COUNTY

lots would become micro-communities where city dwellers need only walk a block or two to access food, retail, groceries and electric vehicle charging stations.

Reef ’s plan is not merely to park cars but, according to an internal document, “transform underutilized parking garages and lots into urban mobility hubs” that could “include delivery-only kitchens, micro-fulfillment centers, bike and scooter rental stations, electric vehicle charging, drone pads, and rideshare/autonomous vehicle buffering areas.”

The trade publication Building Design + Construction magazine raved in 2019, “Not bad for something that, in the past, was just a flat piece of asphalt or concrete for housing vehicles.”

Let’s say you had a few drinks on New Year’s Eve 2021, got hungry and were scrolling on Postmates or Uber Eats. Maybe you noticed spicy Mongolian beef bao from a place called Wow Bao, or waffle fries from Wings and Things.

Either way, your midnight snack was likely coming from the same trailer parked in the Every Day Food Mart parking lot along Southeast Foster Road in the Lents neighborhood.

On any given night in 2021, Reef employees at more than 20 “vessels”—what Reef calls its ghost kitchen trailers—checkered around the city were cooking burgers and wings to quell the drunken munchies, watching orders pop up on a screen mounted to the wall of a trailer.

The trailer parked along Foster looked like a shipping container. It contained a kitchen that looked like the inside of most food carts. On one side of a narrow walkway was a stovetop, frying basket and large toaster oven. On the back wall hung pots and pans. Under the shelves were stacks of brown boxes, bags and napkins. Such vessels dotted the city in the parking lots of convenience stores, dry cleaners, tool shops

and industrial kitchens. They sold three to seven distinct brands from each cart, according to health department records that track the menus of each Reef trailer.

Trailers normally sold food from places called Man vs. Fries, Wow Bao, Wings and Things, BurgerFi, Rebel Wings, Sticky Wings, Mr. Beast Burger and Umami Burger. If a brand underperformed, employees tell WW, Reef would give it the boot and bring another one online.

Of the 75 to 100 ghost kitchens that the health department estimated were in business across the city, Reef ran at least 26 of them at its height.

When Reef came to town, it couldn’t have timed its entry any better. Within six months, the pandemic would gut the central city of its office workers, patrons and tourists. Restaurants descended into panic. Customers turned to takeout clamshells.

Camden says Reef was “able to pounce as soon as COVID happened.”

Reef didn’t always prepare food for virtual brands. In 2021, Reef and burger giant Wendy’s announced they would partner to roll out 700 trailers across the country.

Portland, according to records obtained by WW, had four of them: massive, cherry-red trailers with Wendy’s smiling face, each cooking Double Stack hamburgers.

Twenty-five-year-old Isaiah, who asked that WW use only his first name, got hired at a Wendy’s trailer parked in a convenience store parking lot in mid-2022.

He’d never cooked before in his life and says he received no formal training. He worked the night shift as the only cook. He’d prepare the food— following written directions on sheets of paper attached to the trailer’s wall—put it in boxes and bags, and hand it to delivery drivers in Wendy’s packaging.

Isaiah visited the manager of the Reef trailer

NO BURGERS

HERE: The Wendy’s trailer along 82nd Avenue is bolted shut.

next to him—a blue trailer for one of Reef’s subsidiaries, NBRHD—when he was stuck.

“I had him train me,” Isaiah says. “I had to run over here and have him teach me when I had a question.”

Reef insists its ghost kitchens are successful.

“Reef has been the leading operator of both parking and ghost kitchens in the region for a number of years and looks forward to continuing to grow,” says a company spokesperson.

ANYTHING

GOES:

Reef parked one of its ghost kitchen vessels in the parking lot of a Southeast Portland convenience store.

A Reef Technology spreadsheet obtained by WW that lists ghost kitchen sales and revenue across 37 cities in 2020 and 2021 shows that the company last year made an average of $17,858 a day from its Portland ghost kitchens—that’s $6.5 million a year.

Portland ranked fifth for revenues in cities where Reef operated ghost kitchens that year,

CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

according to the spreadsheet. In 2020, it ranked second.

Average daily revenue per vessel was $1,021, with an average of 37 orders a day per vessel.

“A thousand dollars a day would be just breaking even for a walk-up cart in the downtown core,” says Keith Jones, who manages the Cart Blocks in Ankeny Square. “It’s hard for me to imagine that this is a profitable venture because that’s split between how many restaurants? Whatever profit margin Reef has, I’d say that this is probably not something that was long-term sustainable.”

Meanwhile, WW has learned, Reef no longer holds some of its major parking lot contracts in the central city.

Last year, Melvin Mark Properties chose another vendor to operate five of its parking lots, according to CEO Jim Mark. This summer, Moda Center’s Rip City Management told WW, it “decided to go with another vendor” after its contract with Reef expired. In November, regional government Metro chose a new vendor to operate parking lots at the Oregon Convention Center and the Expo Center.

A July letter from a Metro attorney to Reef’s attorneys, threatening to sever ties at the Expo Center, offers some insight into why.

“Our staff have reached out to Reef with various concerns regarding responsiveness to issues, staffing at our facilities, uniforms, adequate training, and cash handling,” Metro deputy attorney Nathan Sykes wrote. “Reef continues to underperform on the contract without any adequate response to [Expo Center] staff.”

Perhaps the most damaging blow, however, will be the end of the lease to run the roughly 20 parking lots on real estate owned by the Goodman family come Jan. 1. That lease was among the largest of Reef’s Portland operations. A Reef manager wrote to health department officials Nov. 29, in an email obtained by WW, that Reef and the Downtown Development Group were “unable to come to an agreement …for the continued operation of their parking facilities.”

Greg Goodman declined to comment. Reef

STRANDED: None of Reef’s listed retail vessels in Portland appears to be operational.

maintains that the ending of the parking contracts and leases doesn’t matter to the larger business.

The company says those contracts “were allowed to expire per the terms of their contract and don’t represent a significant percentage of Reef’s portfolio globally.”

The empty shells of Reef’s business lie in a Prosper Portland parking lot.

A total of eight shuttered Reef trailers are lined up on the pavement, including two ghost kitchen vessels, two retail vessels, and two vessels emblazoned with the logo of the snack-delivery brand Reef launched earlier this year, Goodees.

Reef would not say how many operational vessels it still has in Portland.

A Reef vessel listed in health department re-

cords is nowhere to be found on the parking lot behind Five Star Cleaners in Northeast Portland.

“They told me they were consolidating,” says Five Star owner Michael Maggard, “and that it didn’t really pencil out for them.”

Isaiah was laid off about a month ago. The Wendy’s trailer closed shortly thereafter. The doors are bolted from the outside and the windows are closed.

Isaiah, in a green Tupac bomber jacket, Nike Air sneakers, light-wash jeans, and a flat bill cap, visited with the manager of the nearby Reef trailer on a recent Sunday evening.

It was only 4:30 in the afternoon, but it was already pitch dark and 33 degrees outside. The soft-spoken manager, who declined to give WW his name for fear of retaliation by Reef, stood outside the trailer and smoked. He wore a hoodie,

SPEED BUMPS

Reef Technology says its business model looks different depending on the city.

“ Reef continues to grow globally, launching new locations, brands and applications around the world,” a spokesperson tells WW, “although it’s not growing in the same way or at the

same rate in every city.”

A review of news coverage in other cities, however, suggests a nationwide pattern: aggressive expansion and conflicts with regulators and brand partners.

A s it entered Portland, Reef launched ghost kitchens in over 30 other cities, including New York and Houston.

It signed a contract with Wendy’s in August 2021 to open 700 Wendy’s trailers across the country. That same year, it announced partnerships with

Burger King, Jack in the Box, celebrity chef Guy Fieri, rapper DJ Khaled, and a YouTube star who goes by “Mr. Beast.”

By mid-2021, Reef boasted 320 ghost kitchen trailers nationwide.

Reef higher-ups sent inspirational messages to the company’s

Reef has run into conflict across the country.

STARDOM: Celebrities like YouTube star Mr. Beast partnered with Reef to sell brands.

“I had to run over here and have him teach me when I had a question.”

jeans and a hat. Inside the trailer was a fryer, hanging pots and pans, and lots of greasy surfaces. He said peak hours for the trailer are between 7 pm and 2 am.

The manager of another Reef trailer on the eastside, who goes by “B” and came to the Foster location to hang out with the other two, said Reef has shrunk its trailer presence in the past year and instead has started clustering seven to 10 brands in each remaining trailer.

B pointed to a plastic sign next to the trailer that listed eight brands in black lettering, all made in this trailer. Five were chicken wing brands.

“If they keep throwing their money in the wrong areas, they’re going to go out of business,” B told WW, exhaling cigarette smoke. “They keep changing their motto every three months. They don’t stick with nothing.”

KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL

While Reef Technology seems to be in retreat in Portland, another more traditional ghost kitchen appears to be thriving. Located in a 2,700-squarefoot building in Northwest Portland, Homage Industrial Kitchen is booming, says owner John Wirtz.

Homage, registered with the state as a limited liability corporation, cooks food that’s branded under 76 distinct virtual restaurant names on apps such as Grubhub and Uber Eats.

If someone in Northwest Portland were to search for a burger on Uber Eats, it’s likely three or four of the restaurants that pop up sell food prepared in Wirtz’s kitchen at Northwest 17th Avenue and Marshall Street.

Virtual restaurants from Wirtz’s operation include: 1-800-BURGERS!, the Taco Pit, Cupid’s Wings, Bitch Don’t Grill My Cheese, Dirty Burger and Dank Bites.

Wirtz, who spoke to WW by phone, is proud of his business model.

“ Let’s say you have a new person go on to DoorDash and they don’t recognize any of the brands,” Wirtz says. “If there are 10 brands on there, and you own five of them, you have a 50% chance of them picking you. I mean, this is business by numbers.”

Wirtz says 85% of the menu for his brands with similar cuisines—say, Breakfast Burrito Fetish and Blessed Burrito Bowls—is identical.

He claims to fulfill 5,000 orders a week and brings in gross revenue of $63,000 a week. He says he has approximately 40 employees.

Wirtz is not without his critics.

“ This place takes the cynical approach, which is throwing a thousand things at the wall and seeing if any stick. It feels deceptive,” says Kurt Huffman, the Portland restaurateur who founded Lardo, Ox and Grassa and runs a management company

that helps open restaurants. “The whole thing is profoundly uninteresting and hopefully something that will die a fiery death. These are the perversions of ghost kitchens.”

( When the pandemic hit, Huffman’s catering company ran five ghost concepts out of its kitchen. That lasted six months before catering returned and Huffman scrapped the idea.)

Over the past two years, seven former employees of Wirtz’s filed complaints with the Oregon Bureau of Labor & Industries, alleging withheld paychecks, unpaid overtime and stolen tips. All complaints remain under investigation.

Wirtz is not new to the food business. The Oregon native, 30, has worked as a line cook, chef and waiter in restaurants since high school. But in 2017, according to a court affidavit by then-Washington County deputy district attorney Kevin Barton, Wirtz invited a 14-year old runaway girl to his Beaverton apartment, agreeing to

The former home of Thai restaurant Pok Pok now houses a ghost kitchen selling 76 virtual brands.

let her stay there in exchange for sex. According to Barton’s affidavit, Wirtz and his roommate “separately engaged in sexual acts with the victim” when she arrived, to which she could not consent because she was under 18. Indictment documents say Wirtz’s roommate, Muizz Sosna, threatened the victim with a firearm when she attempted to leave.

Wirtz agreed to a plea deal, agreeing to testify against Sosna in exchange for dropped kidnapping and commercial sexual solicitation charges. He pleaded guilty to rape and sexual assault.

Wirtz spent a year and a half in custody while awaiting sentencing, according to the prosecutor in the case. In July 2018, Wirtz was sentenced to five years’ probation minus time served. However, the Oregon State Police’s Sex Offender Registration Section tells WW that Wirtz’s probation ended Sept. 23, 2020.

WW asked if he employs any minors. Wirtz said he does.

This spring, Wirtz brought in a “chief operating officer” to help out at Homage: former Salem cop Seth Thayres.

Thayres appears to have little experience in the food business and, in February 2019, retired after five years with the Salem Police Department when he was arrested by authorities. Two months later, Thayres was convicted in Clackamas County Circuit Court of theft after he and an accomplice stole more than $30,000 worth of equipment from two businesses.

Soon after he pleaded guilty to those charges, he fled to Florida to evade another rash of theft, burglary and computer crime charges. He was extradited back to Oregon and sentenced to two years in prison, according to court documents.

Thayres, when reached by phone, acknowledged he’d made mistakes, but told WW he’s “actually glad that it happened because it got me stabilized with my medications and in housing.”

SOPHIE PEEL.

“launch” team, responsible for placing, permitting and prepping trailers for use. Some of those messages, sent to more than 100 employees, were shared with WW

In the spring of 2021, Onur Kinay, global head of real estate deployment at Reef, sent a WhatsApp message to the launch team that sang the virtues of speed, which would “allow us to execute super fast and flawless without worrying about unimportant consequences.”

Arjun Gupta, senior vice president

of global partnerships and operations, instructed Reef’s launch group on May 9, 2021, to each pick a distinct address in proximity to a new Burger King ghost kitchen in Los Angeles, place orders, and then choose the “pick-up” option, which would signal cooks not to make the orders. “We are hoping to get to [about] 150 orders tonight,” he wrote.

G upta instructed employees to rate the food they never ate to boost the brand’s visibility.

B ut amid its rapid growth, Reef

clashed with regulators and contractors.

Minneapolis: Last December, Reef pulled its vessels from the city after clashing with regulators over permits.

New York City: In October 2021, Reef temporarily shut down its vessels after regulators alleged they’d broken health and safety rules. (Reef denies this, claiming instead that their permits had expired.)

Houston: In October, Business Insider reported, Reef stopped operating all of its trailers in the nation’s

fourth-largest city, where it once operated 29. Reef cited underwhelming profits.

Miami: In May, Business Insider reported that commercial real estate company JLL had sued Reef for an alleged $3.5 million in unpaid invoices.

Jack in the Box, Burger King and Popeyes all cut off their contracts with Reef this fall, according to Business Insider. (Reef contends it decided to end the partnerships.)

SOPHIE PEEL.

Two men running a ghost kitchen in Northwest Portland advertise 76 distinct “restaurants” on food delivery apps.

REPURPOSED:

STOCKING UP

Photos by Mick Hangland-Skill

On Instagram: @mick.jpg

With just two full weekends left before Christmas, the shopping started to get serious at the Oregon Convention Center, where two holiday markets popped up Dec. 9-11. At Crafty Wonderland, the gifts were a bit more audacious—from shiny, brightly colored garland wreaths to dangly earrings to paintings of a patron saint version of Nicolas Cage. The offerings veered more traditional at ScanFair, where you could find Fair Isle-style sweaters, creepy Santa dolls, sphereshaped Danish pastries and a Viking ship (which, presumably, was for display purposes only).

DRINK: Boozy Bingo

Need a midweek dopamine boost? If yes, jaunt on over to Tigard’s Senet Game Bar. The venue’s Boozy Bingo night offers not just the thrill of intermittent reward but also seasonal cocktails. One lucky winner even gets the privilege of creating the following week’s signature drink, whose proceeds go to Project Lemonade, which supports foster youth. Senet Game Bar, 12553 SW Main St., Suite 201, Tigard, 503-583-7412, senetgamebar.com. 8 pm Wednesday, Dec. 14. No cover.

well as live music and fire pits to help you stay warm. Pray for snow to add to the wintry ambience and create some beautiful photo ops. GoodLife Brewing/Century Center, 70 SW Century Drive, #100-464, Bend, 541-728-0749, merctickets.com. 2-9 pm Saturday, Dec. 17. $20 includes a DrinkTanks stainless steel mug, five tasting tokens, and raffle entry.

ic Standing, four years before he started playing Saul Goodman’s bodyguard. Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 503-583-8464, portland.heliumcomedy. com. 10 pm Saturday, Dec. 17. $35 general admission, $45 reserved. 21+.



LISTEN: Elf in Concert



GO: Flash: A Track and Field Photography Showcase

In the summer of 2022, hundreds of thousands of visitors congregated in Eugene for the World Athletic Championships. Among them were talented photographers who captured the movement of the competitors in a way the human eye simply cannot. See an exhibition of their works (and those of other sports photographers) and perhaps even take some breathtaking images home from the gala’s auction. And while the subjects of the photos may be sporting athletic wear, keep in mind that this is a formal event (with hors d’oeuvres and drinks). Providence Park Tanner Ridge Room, 1844 SW Morrison St., 503-553-5400, portlandtrack.com. 6:30-9-30 pm Thursday, Dec. 15. $30.



GO: Central Oregon Winter Beer Festival

Did you think festival season was over? It’s not if you’re willing to trek over the mountains to Bend for some Central Oregon hospitality. GoodLife Brewing is hosting the Central Oregon Winter Beer Festival, which will feature beer and cider from many of the city’s best producers as



DRINK: 10 Barrel’s Annual Pearl Ball

Dubbed “the PNW’s fanciest beer event,” 10 Barrel’s Annual Pearl Ball is perhaps one of the best reasons to don your finest this season. After a two-year absence, the party is back and bigger than ever. You can expect an oyster bar, hors d’oeuvres, prize giveaways, and live music by Good Co Band and DJ Courtney Flip Flops at the dark circus themed-event. 10 Barrel is replacing its traditional pub food menu with a gourmet buffet-style dinner for one night only. This is also your opportunity to meet the Portland location’s newest innovation brewmaster, Madeleine McCarthy, who left Von Ebert Brewing in September for the new position. 10 Barrel Brewing, 1411 NW Flanders St., 503-224-1700, 10barrel.com/pub/portland-brewery. 6 pm Saturday, Dec. 17. $50 in advance, $65 at the door. 21+.



LAUGH: Lavell Crawford

Nights are only getting longer for the next week or so, which means many of us could use some medicinal laughter to mitigate the increasing darkness. Lavell Crawford is bringing his comedic stylings to Helium to help us out. Crawford is best known for playing Huell in Breaking Bad and its brilliant spinoff Better Call Saul, so you may not have known he’s a comedian who was runner-up on Season 5 of NBC’s Last Com-

For many, watching Elf is a Christmas tradition, but could it ever be as magical without the iconic Will Ferrell charm? Our sources say yes, but you can make your own determination at the Schnitz this weekend. If you’ve ever uttered the phrase, “Son of a nutcracker!” this one is definitely for you. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 503228-1353, orsymphony.org. 2 and 7:30 pm Saturday and 2 pm Sunday, Dec. 17-18. $45-$145.

MAKE: Gingerbread House Workshop

The enduring question when making gingerbread houses is, “But is it actually edible?” When it comes to Sesame Collective pastry chef Carrie Ellen’s creations, the answer is likely to be yes. She’ll lead three gingerbread house workshops, where the tough part (the abode itself) will already be constructed. All you have to do is get to decorating. Can’t make the in-person session? Kits are available to purchase and take home. Yalla, 7850 SW Capitol Highway, 503-206-4007, sesamecollective.com/gingerbread. 10 and 11:30 am and 1 pm Sunday, Dec. 18. $75 for up to three participants. $60 for the gingerbread kit only.



EAT: Winter Solstice Dinner

The longest night of the year is a great excuse to use several of those hours entertaining yourself with food and drink.

Rally Pizza hosts a dinner in observance of the winter solstice, where the regular menu will be available, but go ahead and indulge in the specials, which include a creamy beet salad, housemade garlic bread topped with Parmesan and pecorino, clams cooked in white wine, and a Sardinian gnocchi and lamb ragù. And since more daylight is just on the horizon, celebrate with an indulgent dessert. Can’t decide between the cannoli sundae or limoncello boozy shakes? Get both. Rally Pizza, 8070 E Mill Plain Blvd., Vancouver, Wash., 360-524-9000, rallypizza.com. 4-8 pm Sunday, Dec. 18.

WATCH: Fezziwig’s Fortune Anonymous Theatre, the ultra-secretive company that conceals its cast members until opening night, is putting on its first holiday show. Fezziwig’s Fortune is a world-premiere play that was under development at last year’s Fertile Ground Festival of New Works. It focuses, as you might have guessed by the title, on Fezziwig, a perky, supporting character in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol Here, he becomes the protagonist, and the script will reveal a wealth of anguish behind his cheerful façade. Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, 12625 SW Crescent St., Beaverton, 971-501-7722, thereser.org. 7 pm Monday, Dec. 19. $24-$64.

SAY CHEESE: To celebrate the winter solstice, Rally Pizza offers a special Italian menu Dec. 18, which includes housemade garlic bread topped with Parmesan and pecorino.

FOOD & DRINK

Mama’s Kitchen

BY THOM HILTON

The room is the thing at Yui, the unassuming, almost difficult to find Thai restaurant off Northeast Killingsworth Street. (OK, maybe it was only difficult to find for my Lyft driver, who dropped me off nearly two blocks away, but I digress.)

Situated inside the former DOC space along Northeast 30th Avenue, one of Portland’s most “of the moment” restaurant rows, Yui is surrounded by heavy hitters like Dame, Wilder and Gabbiano’s. The restaurant is not new, having opened in August 2020 for takeout, then reopening for dine-in service in March 2022 after a brief closure. Based on the steady flow of clientele on a Monday night and near-rapturous comments online, the spot clearly has an audience. Despite this, there have been no formal reviews of the restaurant, perhaps due to oversaturation of incredible Thai food in Portland, perhaps not. But I am here to tell you: Go.

The business’s moniker comes from a Thai nickname meaning “chubby cheeks,” given at birth to owner, manager, host, server, bartender and busser Chalunthorn Schaeffer by her mother “Mama” Ta Triamchainon, who runs the entire kitchen. This restaurant is these two women.

The concept of the open kitchen is nothing new, but at Yui, Schaeffer greets you by opening the door directly into Mama’s bustling kitchen—one must pass through her space to get to the dining area. It’s an immediate tone-setter: Something special and personal awaits. On the menu, there’s no pick-your-own protein or six different spice levels to choose from. The elimination of the “choose your

own adventure” element we’ve grown so accustomed to with Thai takeout brings new life and specificity to each dish, locking them in the memory with a secure sense of identity.

A notable signature dish is the krapao wagyu kaidao ($21), made with ultra-tender and generously salted minced beef from local Nicky Farms, hunks of Thai eggplant, bell peppers and a fried egg. The pad kee mao ($14) is a solid interpretation of the takeout staple, with tender and near-transparent wide noodles, soft tofu and green beans. Larb moo ($16), made with minced pork, is given a springlike vivacity from an abundance of cilantro, culantro and mint.

Spice wimps like me be cautioned: These dishes pack

some heat. But all are built with powerful flavors, adding dimension to what otherwise would be one-note, tongue-numbing offerings. My dining partner, a heat-lover, was even surprised by the intensity of a few bites, which I imagine will be a major selling point for prospective customers. Besides, accouterments like crisp, cool cucumber and aromatic sticky rice balance everything out. Live a little!

Rum cocktails ($13) help cool things down and are unique explosions of herbaceous sweetness, like the Maekhong No. 5 with lime leaves, chile, pineapple juice and almond syrup—landing somewhere between a whiskey sour and a piña colada. The Mama Ta, with lemongrass-infused vodka, mint liqueur and butterfly pea syrup twists flavors

FLOATS YOUR BOAT: The boat noodle soup, a house specialty, comes loaded with meatballs, crispy pork, scallions and morning glory greens.

COURTESY

HAYLEY ESTEP @HAYESTEP

Editor: Andi Prewitt Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com

Hot Plates

WHERE TO EAT THIS WEEK.

1. MI CAVA & COCINA

Buzz List

WHERE TO DRINK THIS WEEK.

1. SLEIGH LOVE AT HEY LOVE

9722 SE Washington St., 971-383-1779, micavaandcocina.com. 11 am-10 pm Monday-Thursday, 11 am-11 pm Friday-Saturday.

A newish restaurant near what’s left of Mall 205 is trying something bold: operate as the only upscale Mexican seafood and steakhouse in a sea of chain eateries. Mi Cava & Cocina offers diners a major upgrade from the area’s corporate-heavy fare. The housemade sauces and fish dishes shine, like the market-price pescado zarandeado, which arrives sizzling on a board after being crisped on an open flame. Enjoy it in between sips of a mango, tamarind, watermelon and cucumber margarita.

2. GRAND FIR BREWING

1403 SE Stark St., grandfirbrewing.com. Noon-10 pm Tuesday-Sunday, noon-11 pm Friday-Saturday. It was only a matter of time before brewer Whitney Burnside and chef Doug Adams went into business together. The husband-and-wife team opened Grand Fir in the former West Coast Grocery Company space in mid-November, and there was a line around the block to get in on the first day (evidence of how highly anticipated this project has been). Adams’ famed smoked meats (braised elk, Calabrian chicken wings) anchor the food menu and pair perfectly with Burnside’s beers.

920 E Burnside St., 503-206-6223, heylovepdx.com. 3 pm-midnight Monday-Thursday, 3 pm-1 am Friday, 10 am-1 am Saturday, 10 am-midnight Sunday. Now through Jan. 1, Jupiter Next Hotel’s groundfloor botanical garden that also happens to serve food and drinks is Sleigh Love, a Christmas pop-up adorned in holiday décor. The menu includes a limited-time lineup of boozy drinks, like Noggy by Nature, a slushie version of the classic; a Peppermint Patty Pudding Shot and Jeffrey Morgenthaler’s World Famous Amaretto Sour. While they’re probably expensive (as per the pop-up tradition), isn’t drinking out of festive glassware at someplace other than your grandma’s house a priceless experience?

2. MASALA LAB & MARKET

5237 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 971-340-8635, masalalabpdx.com. 9 am-3 pm Thursday-Tuesday. The recently opened Masala Lab just extended its hours of operation and added new items to the menu after the team had several weeks to perfect recipes. While everything coming out of the gluten-free kitchen sounds appealing—from the saagshuka to the chaat hash—we might be most excited about the lineup of new cocktails, boozy brunch classics with an Indian twist. As we head through December, at least one chai hot toddy should accompany your meal.

you’d expect to find in a soup into something unusually refreshing. Speaking of soup, a specialty and recommendation of the house, the boat noodle soup ($20) is enormous and loaded with meatballs, crispy pork, scallions, and morning glory greens—a rich, aromatic beef broth reminiscent of pho, but with a deeper, fattier flavor. Despite our ordering most of the menu at once, Mama Ta whipped out dish after dish at superhuman speed. Much of the fun is watching her work, half-hidden by a parted gold curtain that barely separates the kitchen and the dining room. Shumai ($12) are juicy and piping hot and arrive in a little steam bath of chile oil. Sakoo ($8), radish and peanut tapioca dumplings with palm sugar, felt almost dessertlike until I was met with the strong punch of heat and crunch of fried garlic.

The absolute standout dish, which I look forward to returning for, is the Massaman curry nua ($20)—sweet, warming and rich, with rice, braised beef and potatoes so tender they melt in the mouth. Served with some OMGgood roti that evokes the most talked-about restaurants in Portland, I smiled giddily after each bite of the crisp and flaky dipping material. Order extra. Because here, you can. Unlike most restaurants with rules and perspective, with a single person cooking in a semi-interactive environment, you’re not having a $200 tasting menu. That’s the delight of Yui: Cheffy technique and a one-of-a-kind service experience make dinner here one of the most casually transparent, totally comforting meals you can have in Portland right now.

EAT: Yui, 5519 NE 30th Ave., 503-946-9465, yuipdx.com. 4-9 pm Monday-Saturday.

3. GIGANTIC BREWING

HAWTHORNE

4343 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-889-0190, giganticbrewing.com. 3-9 pm Monday-Friday, noon-9 pm Saturday-Sunday.

Gigantic’s third location marks the company’s entry into food service and offers a menu that tracks the founders’ beer-related travels around the world. So far, everything coming out of the kitchen is solid, but the standout is the Flæskesteg, a Danish pork sandwich that is a tribute to those at Copenhagen’s Isted Grill. The crispy Carlton Farms roast pork loin is barely contained in its brioche bun and comes layered in braised red cabbage, remoulade and housemade dill pickles.

4. SCHOLAR PDX

2226 NE Broadway, 503-344-1507, scholarpdx.com. 5-9:30 pm Thursday-Sunday. A first look at Scholar’s menu reveals that it intends to please anyone who might walk through the door. There are ample libations, with amari prominently featured, both as a standalone and in mixed drinks. For dinner, 12-inch thin-crust pizzas are solid, with dark-baked rims encircling both red- and white-sauced pies. Order one of the predetermined choices, such as plain cheese or pepperoni, or build your own with up to three toppings. Best nonpizza item: Buffalo-style chicken livers with smoked blue cheese over polenta.

5. NODOGURO

623 NE 23rd Ave., nodoguropdx.com. 6:30 pm single seating Thursday-Sunday. It only seats 13, costs $250 before drinks, and is a tough reservation to snag, but the fan pool for Ryan and Elena Roadhouse’s incomparable meals is deep and enthusiastic. Nodoguro should be anchored at its latest location for at least three years. Yes, there will be uni, caviar, Dungeness crab and several varieties of pristine fish flown in from Japan. But the artistry in presentation, the restraint evident on every plate, is at least equal to the luxury of the ingredients.

3. BREAKSIDE BREWERY

Multiple locations, breakside.com. Hours vary by location.

Breakside is starting to see the fruits of its labor— overhauling its barrel-aging program—a project that began two years ago. The prolific brewery recently released a special case of six blended and aged stouts that debuted in 2021 and, earlier this year, were cellared, making the set an ideal holiday gift for the beer nerd in your life. Also look for the final two imperial stouts on draft and in bottles in the 2022 lineup: My Stars Shine Darkly (aged in bourbon and maple syrup bottles) and This Great Stage of Fools (aged in bourbon barrels with pecans and spices).

4. STRAIGHTAWAY COCKTAILS TASTING ROOM

901 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 971-255-1627, straightawaycocktails.com. Noon-7 pm Monday-Wednesday, noon-8 pm Thursday-Saturday, noon-5 pm Sunday. There’s a good reason all of the charter yacht guests on the ever-expanding Bravo franchise Below Deck order an abundance of espresso martinis. The ’80s cocktail really is delicious, and thanks to the caffeine content, it helps keep the party going. Straightaway Cocktails and Stumptown Coffee teamed up to make their own canned version with coffee liqueur and cold brew, which you can now drink at the distiller’s Hawthorne tasting room or purchase to enjoy at home.

5. ABIGAIL HALL

813 SW Alder St., abigailhallpdx.com. 5-11 pm Tuesday-Wednesday, 5 pm-midnight Thursday-Saturday. Now that Thanksgiving is in the rearview mirror, we can go into full-on Christmas mode. And what better way to get into the holiday spirit than by drinking cocktails inspired by the season? Abigail Hall’s beverage director, Derek Jacobi (formerly of New York’s Dead Rabbit and Black Tail), has created a new cocktail menu with some Christmaslike drinks, including a Brûleevardier (a take on crème brûlée) and Walnut Olivetto (a nod to lemon meringue pie).

COURTESY MI CAVA & COCINA

Happy Holiblaze

BY BRIANNA WHEELER

So, you made it to the holidays. Congratulations. You should be very proud of yourself. This was a helluva year.

Between salaries that aren’t keeping up with the cost of living, crippling inflation, and a still-raging pandemic that continues to punish frontline and minimum wage workers, it’s a miracle we haven’t collectively canceled society yet. But here we are, lucky enough to be sketching out gift lists for people we love and cherish. Pardon my Xmas blasphemy but, Jesus Christ, this is a disorienting era.

Either way, broke or nah, the season of giving has arrived. For those with mad ducats to drop, this can be the time of year to flex your paychecks by showing people how much you appreciate them with lavish goods. For those with leaner budgets, take it from a stoner: A pre-roll is an excellent gift under $5, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. So whether you’re doing it for baby Jesus, the spirit of capitalism, or simply for the sake of

For the Home Spa-Obsessed Stoner: Radlands CBD Wellness Products

This Bend-based CBD brand sells a simple lineup of straightforward self-care products, including lip balm, bath salts, a full-spectrum tincture, and a medicated balm. Each product is formulated with full-spectrum hemp extracts and delivers soothing effects. My favorites are the citrusy, flowery bath salts, which perfume an entire bathroom, as well as the lip balm, a fabulous low-cost stocking stuffer for anyone who’s got chapped bong lips. $3.95-$39.95.

BUY: radlandscbd.com

For the Stoner Adventurer: Rogue Paq Ritual Case

The super-posh, traveling cannathusiast might appreciate this sleek, compact, smell-proof carrying case. Rogue Paq ritual cases neatly roll open, expanding like a chef’s knife holder to display areas for flower, smoking utensils, a small grinder, an included gold-plated roach clip, and even a few pothead odds and ends. The whole affair feels very ceremonial once rolled out, like a traveling weed tray but soft and opulent. Available in vegan leather or lambskin, the case is also customizable, so you can even have your adventure-minded recipient’s name etched into the leather. $130-$355.

BUY: roguepaq.com

For the Spiritual Dabber: Sand Castle Special Reserve Temple Ball

For the uninitiated, temple balls are small spheres of aged, hand-rolled hashish. Rolling temple balls is an ancient practice that results in a uniquely special product. These are more complex, flavorwise, than straightforward cold-water hash, and produce a much creamer, milkier smoke. Puffing temple balls is a coveted stoner experience, and Sand Castle’s certainly have the special-occasion, celebratory vibe that suits gifting season. But let’s be real: Every season is temple ball season if you’re ’bout that life. Prices vary by dispensary.

BUY: sandcastlehash.com

For the Hand-Blown Oil Rig Devotee: G Pen Hyer Vaporizer

Before electronic dab rigs became the standard, many of the constant dabbers in my life relied on a tool called an electronic nail. The “nail” was typically a small metal coil that would wrap around the bowl of the dab rig to maintain high heat without a torch. These tools became obsolete with the advent of e-rigs from brands like Puffco and Dr.Dabber, which traded the exposed red hot coils and butane torches for internal heating mechanisms. But for those unwilling to part with their decorative glass, the choice remained: e-nail or torch. The G Pen Hyer, however, marries the convenience of an e-rig, the portability of a torch, and the even heat of an e-nail. The unit attaches to an existing rig, acting as a rechargeable, portable electric bowl, keeping temperature even and the glass pristine. Bonus: It can be used with flower as well as concentrates. $249.95.

BUY: gpen.com

For the Esoteric Pothead: The Psychic Mary Tarot Deck

At first blush, these Rider-Waite-based, cannabis-themed tarot cards may seem a bit superficial and simple, but after a thorough reading, I can attest they feature particularly resonant images that will tickle very specific parts of a stoner’s brain. The iconography is perfectly in sync with both traditional tarot and contemporary cannabis use, but in a way that’s accessible to people new to both tarot readings and weed. $32.

BUY: psychicmary.com

For the Life of the Party: SuddenlyStoned

Frankly, this is a great gift for any of your social homies, not just the stoner-gamer types. This game is simple to play: Folks take turns picking cards that contain directions like, “Draw the person to your right,” and “Play hide and seek,” or silly question prompts meant to stump the very stoned like, “Guess the time,” and “If you had to eat a human, which part would you eat first? Explain your answer.” It’s a great icebreaker for a small party of pals, 3 to 8 players to be exact, but the game is informal enough to play passively with a large group, and could be a great way to cap off a holiday dinner party. $15.

BUY: breakinggames.com/products/suddenly-stoned

Checking off your stoner holiday gift list? We’re here to help with a roundup of gifts for every type of cannathusiast in your life.

Finding Fezziwig

BY BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON @thobennett

“The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.”

In A Christmas Carol, that’s how Ebenezer Scrooge describes his former mentor, Nigel Fezziwig. A cheery chap in a Welsh Wig, Fezziwig is everything the mean and miserly Scrooge isn’t. Yet Josie Seid was curious about what lay beneath Fezziwig’s ebullient exterior. What if his joy were a dam built to stop the rising tide of grief? And what if he could experience catharsis? “If we had an opportunity to say goodbye properly, what would that look like?” she wondered. “That’s what this is. It’s like a gift.”

That gift is Fezziwig’s Fortune, a play by Seid and Sara Jean Accuardi presented by Anonymous Theatre. The world premiere is the company’s first holiday show and the first new play produced by Anonymous, which is famous for concealing the identities of its cast members until they appear onstage (the actors rehearse alone).

In the play, Fezziwig’s daughter Joy has died, a wrenching plotline dreamed up by Seid and Accuardi. The two playwrights spoke to WW about reimagining Charles Dickens, working with Anonymous, and writing a play about loss and love during a global pandemic.

have lost someone. Because you think about the holidays [during the pandemic], and so many people are dying, this person is going to be so different, these holidays are going to be so different. But there’s always that empty seat at the table.

How much do you get to know from Anonymous Theatre? Do you get to know who’s in the cast?

Sara Jean Accuardi: They said, “What would you like to do?” and so we got to choose, which is a really hard choice to make. Part of me wants to be at every rehearsal, because that’s one of my favorite parts as a playwright. It’s fun to watch your thing grow and come together, or [you could] have the joy of watching an Anonymous production come to life and surprise you. And we both chose to be in the dark.

Seid: For me, if it was any other theater, I’d be all up in it. But Anonymous is such a beautiful, exciting beast that I didn’t want to take away from that. The excitement of working with Anonymous is all that they are—the mystery, the artistry. It’s almost like improv.

Both of you bring so much positivity into the world with your art and as people. Have you had Fezziwig moments when people don’t realize that you need people to make you happy?

WHAT TO SEE AND WHAT TO HEAR

BY DANIEL BROMFIELD @bromf3

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 14:

Josie Seid: Fezziwig is kind of a blip in A Christmas Carol. But the thing that drew me to him is that every iteration I saw of [the story], the young men that worked for him were always like, “Let’s do this fun stuff!” but it was almost like they were holding back, like [Fezziwig’s] outbursts of joy might well be outbursts of something else.

What if there was more to him than just the jolly stuff? And what if his grief filled the room as much as his joy? I think that’s what started me on this journey of like, who is this cat really and what is his whole dimension? What is that thing that’s keeping people holding their breath until he finishes that sentence? Did the pandemic affect the story while you were writing?

Seid: [Fezziwig’s Fortune] is kind of a love letter to people who

Accuardi: My response is, doesn’t everyone? I assume that everyone goes through their own moments of feeling that—or at least maybe I tell myself that. Your cup may not be as full as it needs to be in order to function.

Seid: I have always been the smallest person. I’m shy. I was bullied as a kid. I would say I give myself therapy. This isn’t for them, it’s for you. As an artist, to you, [your art is] not special. It’s just a part of you that has to come out or it’ll make you lose your mind.

SEE IT: Fezziwig’s Fortune plays at the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, 12625 SW Crescent St., Beaverton, 971-501-7722, anonymoustheatre.org. 7 pm Monday, Dec. 19. $24-$64.

If In Rainbows is your favorite Radiohead album for its tight, funky, live-band feel, The Smile might just be your favorite Radiohead side project. With virtuoso British jazz drummer Tom Skinner (Sons of Kemet) in tow, the Radiohead creative nucleus of Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood indulges in paranoid, pristine-sounding, rhythmically tricky avant-rock that’s as straight ahead as it’s possible for music this ambitious to be. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway. 8 pm. $59.50. All ages.

THURSDAY, DEC. 15:

94.7FM’s ongoing December to Remember series brings some of the biggest stars in alt-rock to the Crystal Ballroom, none bigger—at least in sound—than Los Angeles’ Silversun Pickups. Heirs to Smashing Pumpkins’ angsty, ambitious wall-ofsound approach, but with a gentle disposition and cryptic lyrics compared to Billy Corgan’s abrasive temperament, the Pickups are somehow soothing and crushing at once. Find out why they’ve been alt-rock mainstays for the better part of two decades. Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St. 8 pm. $38. All ages.

TUESDAY, DEC. 20:

If you’ve heard a sad, lonesome soul voice belting from passing car windows and portable speakers on the MAX, it’s likely Rod Wave’s. The Florida artist feels like the culmination of the post-Drake turn in hip-hop toward both singing rappers and raw, unvarnished emotional expression. He’s as much a crooner as an MC, one of the most popular practitioners of what’s become half-jokingly known as “pain rap”—and his upcoming Veterans Memorial Coliseum concert promises catharsis on a massive scale. Veterans Memorial Coliseum, 300 N Ramsay Way. 8 pm. $45.50. All ages.

In Fezziwig’s Fortune, playwrights Josie Seid and Sara Jean Accuardi bring a poignant new perspective to A Christmas Carol.

WW: How do you perceive Fezziwig in the book versus the character as he’s portrayed in the play?

THE HOLIDAYMAKERS: Josie Seid and Sara Jean Accuardi.

COURTESY OF JOSIE SEID AND SARA JEAN ACCUARDI

HOTSEAT:

Nataki Garrett

BY CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER @chance_s_p

Three years into her tenure as the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s artistic director, Nataki Garrett is accustomed to seismic shifts and ambitious responses.

2022 saw Garrett help bring back live audiences to OSF at above the national average, host a summit for first-in-their-field Black women leaders, testify before Congress for federal relief funding, and strengthen OSF’s digital arm. She also directs a play herself each year: Confederates last fall, Romeo & Juliet in 2023. But nowhere in Garrett’s ample job description is the expectation to deal with racist backlash. NPR reported this fall that Garrett has endured death threats and must be accompanied by private security in Ashland. This, after she told WW last winter she was fielding letters from patrons identifying themselves as the “Old White Guard,” who accused Garrett of not understanding Shakespeare and staging too much modern and diverse work—a gradual shift that Garrett says predates her OSF tenure by decades.

At the close of a tumultuous year, we spoke with Garrett about her vision for Romeo & Juliet, whether she’ll ever feel at ease in Ashland, and a 2023 season that features Rent, Twelfth Night and more.

tinues to. It’s because I have the audacity to envision my theater and the American theater industry as a place where stories and perspectives from all cultures can be told, where the richness of diversity can be mirrored in our audience. I also have the audacity to believe that if we’re successful at making these changes that we can pave the way for sustained success for generations to come.

How sustainable is that audacity when you’ve said you can’t take your daughter out for ice cream in Ashland?

Nataki Garrett: He’s the artist of the play and uses poetry to give [Romeo and his friends] a broader sense of the world, but also frames the powerlessness of their situation. [He’s] almost like a Beat poet or Amiri Baraka, with a clarity and force: “Do you see, do you see? If you shifted your thinking, you could change the world.”

My question [reading the play growing up] was always, why are these rich white people so upset? That’s the mind of a child. If I removed the thing that I thought should substantiate their happiness and I place these people in a real desperate situation, [their] decisions become less frivolous—shifting it so that Romeo and Juliet need to be with each other in order to move out of this world. My version is also an indictment of the Prince because that’s what I think Shakespeare was doing.

Does directing R&J take on extra importance when you’ve had patrons baselessly claim you’re scared of Shakespeare?

Not for me. I’m an artist. I can really only do what I’m inspired to do. The inspiration has to come from a deeper insight than what people think.

What was directing Confederates like this fall, as news of death threats against you was breaking?

It was profound because the play was so reflective of my life. Directing Confederates for me was an acknowledgment that there’s a system in place that centralizes a way of being toward Black women who are ambitious enough to move beyond what is expected of us.

How much compartmentalization is required to do your job amid those threats?

I can’t afford to compartmentalize. I woke up one morning, and the paradigm that I lived in shifted. I didn’t do anything. I was doing my work, and somebody reacted to it in a very negative way and con-

I’m sort of the primary focus of something happening to people across the Rogue Valley. Aidan Ellison was murdered in his car while listening to music. Last year, the only Black gas station attendant I’ve seen anywhere in a 50mile radius was beaten up by white supremacists and left that job. The Rogue Val ley has to make a decision about what it’s going to be.

Does [Ashland] w make this a place that’s welcoming for everybody?

If that’s not what Ashland wants, then I have to make a decision to move…but I’m willing to wait a little while to see if there’s a real response. The most vulner able in a culture—if you can lift them, if you center their lives, everybody wins. That’s why people are threatening me. They just want themselves to win. I want everybody to win.

What about 2023 particularly excites you?

I’m excited about the relationship [our 2023 plays] have with each other and how our audience is going to feel having their plate filled with so much generous, nurtured spirit that only artists can give us.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival artistic director explains why racism and death threats won’t stop her from creating.

WW: You’re directing Romeo & Juliet in 2023 and say you’ve always been drawn to Mercutio. Why?

Is that “powerlessness” why you’re setting your version against a more desperate West Coast backdrop?

“I can’t afford to compartmentalize. I woke up one morning, and the paradigm that I lived in shifted.”

MOVIES

The Great Love Actually Debate

WW ’s film critics decode the legacy of a controversial Christmas classic.

BY WW STAFF

Early in Love Actually, dilapidated rocker Billy Mack (Bill Nighy) struggles to record a holiday-themed version of the Troggs’ “Love Is All Around.” “It’s shit, isn’t it?” he sighs to his manager, Joe (Gregor Fisher). “Yep!” Joe replies cheerily. “Solid gold shit, maestro!”

A more rapturous reception greeted Love Actually when it was released during the holiday season in 2003. With an ensemble of brilliant Britons (including Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Keira Knightley, Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson) as charmingly lovelorn bumblers, the film was swiftly minted as a Christmas classic, despite dismal reviews.

Yet over the past two decades, Love Actually has crashed into a wall of evolving cultural norms. Today, it’s common for the story’s detractors to mention its arguably sexist tropes, scenes of body shaming, and general aura of ickiness (which is best embodied by the iconic scene in which Andrew Lincoln’s character creepily woos his best friend’s wife, played by Knightley, with a sign that reads “To me, you are perfect”).

Nevertheless, Love Actually remains beloved by many—and none of the discourse has resolved the question of whether it is offensive or just honest about the messiness of modern romance. In the hopes of finding some intellectual clarity, WW’s film critics joined forces for a debate, which has been edited and condensed from multiple conversations.

Together, we sought not only to analyze the blind spots of writer-director Richard Curtis, but to better understand why, after 19 years, Love Actually is still all around. —Bennett Campbell Ferguson, Assistant Arts & Culture Editor

Bennett Campbell Ferguson: All of you either recently rewatched Love Actually or watched it for the first time. How did

it strike you?

Ray Gill Jr.: Looking at it now, I can kind of see what the appeal is. But also, I think it’s really funny to watch with today’s eyes how problematic so many of the scenarios are, like the workplace romance between Hugh Grant, playing the prime minister, and Martine McCutcheon, playing his assistant.

The whole movie is so full of lunacy that you let go of all those normal criticisms, because it’s like candy. I kind of equated it to being like a Christmas tree when I was thinking about it. It’s completely impractical, it’s got all these little pieces on it that kind of make you smile but make no sense. You pull it out once a year, enjoy it, and dispose of it.

Alex Barr: Something I noticed as I was watching it that I thought was really interesting and different than a lot of romcoms of the early aughts is that there was not a specific decision or really an inkling to try to abridge those awkward moments that always happen when you realize, “Oh my God, I like someone.”

Even when you’re the prime minister of England or Hugh Grant, you go into those situations and there’s so much awkwardness. But so many rom-coms truncate that. They don’t really show the awkward parts where someone shuts the door and you’re just cringing at what you said. But that was so prevalent throughout Love Actually

Chance Solem-Pfeifer: It is a psychotic movie. Hugh Grant himself just called the script psychotic in Diane Sawyer’s ABC special The Laughter & Secrets of Love Actually: 20 Years Later It’s preposterous, it’s sweaty. It just has so many things that do not work—and so many things that I think are really lovely and kind of transcendent. Like, how is this working so well?

Ferguson: Even people who hate the movie seem to love the scene where Emma Thompson’s character realizes that her husband (Alan Rickman) has been unfaithful to her. Why?

Gill: Each one of the stories is about seeing a girl and thinking

she’s beautiful and being a bumbling fool to get her, not falling in love. I don’t think they got to know any of these people. They kind of just use the women in this—except for Emma Thompson. You can’t give her a role and have her not freaking be present.

Solem-Pfeifer: That story is almost shockingly realistic, compared to the other things going on around it. Thompson goes in the bedroom and cries but then, a millisecond later, is straightening the bed. And she comes back out, and here’s the man who is now an unwitting sort of tormentor—just kind of plopped on the couch like a third kid between the kids.

How many moms over the holidays have had a terrible burden placed upon them and had a moment where it’s like, “Why is my husband not supporting me?” I don’t want to say it’s a universal experience, but it’s happened to a lot of mothers.

Ferguson: What are your favorite and least favorite storylines in the movie?

Barr: I definitely like the relationship with the young boy (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) and his stepfather (Neeson). He’s trying to walk him through what is it like to have your first crush and be in love for this first time? It was compelling to see the father-son dynamic play out with a mother who can’t be there. To me, it was one of the most genuine stories, to see that parental relationship while you’re navigating grief and loss, but you’re still in love and want to live your own life.

I think the one I didn’t love was the Hugh Grant storyline. But I also think that it speaks to reality, because those things do happen. We just don’t like to talk about it in movies. There are lots of debates and lots of ideological questions about should you represent reality in movies? Or should you represent reality as you think it should be? But this is Love Actually. It’s love as it really is.

IT: Love Actually, rated R, streams on Peacock.

STRANGE ROMANCE: Andrew Lincoln and Keira Knightley.

Editor: Bennett Campbell Ferguson Contact: bennett@wweek.com

Dial Code Santa Claus (1989)

Move over, Violent Night. This 1989 cult film positions Santa as a home invader facing down a French Kevin McCallister. Also known as Deadly Games, it didn’t properly arrive in the States until 2018 (after living in VHS bootleg purgatory). Now you can enjoy it on the big screen via Cinemagic’s holiday film series. Cinemagic, Dec. 17-18.

Batman Returns (1992)

With form-fitting leather, black bile, toyetic insanity and Tim Burton setting $80 million ablaze with a Yule log, Batman Returns seems to grow in estimation every year. Celebrate at the Clinton Street Theater as “trans femme drag enigma” Violet Hex presents the film, complete with a drag show and costume contest. Clinton, Dec. 16.

Gremlins (1984)

Much like Gizmo himself, this gift won’t wait until Christmas. Better open it on Dec. 16 at the Hollywood Theatre, as Joe Dante’s classic horror comedy reminds us all what a good boy Gizmo is and how joyous it is to see a stereotypical suburb clawed apart board by board. Hollywood, Dec. 16.

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983)

The David Bowie filmography is a small, precious group, and Nagisa Ōshima’s POW drama stands out as a prime example of the rock icon’s acting range and nuance, all set to Ryuichi Sakamoto’s gorgeous, acclaimed score. Cinemagic, Dec. 18 and 20.

License to Kill (1989)

Timothy Dalton’s second and final turn as 007 is arguably the most stripped-back Bond film ever. With sad eyes and his crowbar chin, Dalton’s Bond seeks revenge on drug lords who spoiled his old chum Felix Leiter’s wedding. Academy, Dec. 16-22.

ALSO PLAYING:

Academy: Elf (2003), Dec. 16-22. Cinemagic: Christmas Vacation (1989), Dec. 16 and 18. Tokyo Godfathers (2003), Dec. 17 and 19. Elf (2003), Dec. 18. Batman Returns (1992), Dec. 22. Clinton: Fargo (1996), Dec. 15, 18 and 19. Hollywood: Duck Soup (1933), Dec. 15. The Getaway (1972), Dec. 17. Dumb and Dumber (1994), Dec. 18. Bridget Jones’ Diary (2001), Dec. 19. Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), Dec. 20.

SPOILER ALERT

As the credits rolled and the theater lights came on, the audience remained seated, the instrumental soundtrack highlighted by sniffles and the liberation of travel-size tissues. In short, Michael Showalter’s Spoiler Alert rips your heart out with a uniquely beautiful story of love, loss and relationships. Even “Stone Cold” Steve Austin would weep blubbering tears as Michael (Jim Parsons) clings to his dying partner Kit (Ben Aldridge) in a twin-sized hospital bed. The film was adapted from Michael Ausiello’s memoir Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies, which recounts his own love story. In the movie, the magic of the material arises from its realism—one moment you’re belly laughing, the next you’re curling into the fetal position right there on the movie theater floor. Heartbreaking scenes cascade into hilarity, preserving the story’s humanity and gravity. All the actors shine in their roles, but Parsons and Sally Field (as Michael’s mother, Marilyn) offer particularly phenomenal performances. Rom-com fans, clear your schedule and run to the next showing of Spoiler Alert PG-13. ALEX BARR. Bridgeport, Cascade, Cedar Hills, Eastport, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Studio One, Vancouver Mall.

WHITE NOISE

: THIS MOVIE IS EXCELLENT, ONE OF THE BEST OF THE YEAR.

: THIS MOVIE IS GOOD. WE RECOMMEND YOU WATCH IT.

: THIS MOVIE IS ENTERTAINING BUT FLAWED.

: THIS MOVIE IS A STEAMING PILE.

A bright orange tanker barrels down a country road. On the truck, in bold black letters, are two warnings: “Toxic Chemicals” and “Flammable.” So, of course, the driver reaches for a bottle of Jack Daniels. What could go wrong? In story terms, everything; artistically, nothing. White Noise, an unexpectedly buoyant tale from hyper-cynical auteur Noah Baumbach (Marriage Story), may be his best film—an astonishment, given that it’s based on Don DeLillo’s allegedly “unfilmable” 1985 novel. A perky, puffed-up Adam Driver stars as Jack Gladney, a professor of Hitler studies (thankfully, a field of research, not a how-to course) fleeing an “airborne toxic event” with his wife, Babette (Greta Gerwig), and their four children. Amid the pandemonium, Baumbauch unleashes a banquet of themes—consumerism, infidelity and climate crisis are all on the menu—yet never leaves you feeling intellectually overfed. Merrily and persuasively, White Noise insists that life is wondrous in its meaninglessness, even when Jack and Babette seek spiritual guidance from a ferociously grouchy nun (Barbara Sukowa) who declares that anyone hoping to hear her talk of angels is an idiot. Turns out, she’s not a fan of the next world; she’s just doing her best to help people live in this one. In its poignant, peculiar way, so is White Noise R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bridgeport, Hollywood.

THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER

Martin Scorsese once described his career as, “One for them, one for me”—and filmmaker Joanna Hogg (The Souvenir) has certainly taken the second part of that statement to heart with her latest inward reflection, The Eternal Daughter, starring Tilda Swinton. She plays the dual role of a middle-aged daughter, Julie, and her elderly mother, both of whom come to stay at a dank hotel that was once an estate where the mother lived. Julie is desperate to show her a good time, but can’t seem to break through the years of history and trauma the place holds. Her only encounters with other characters are with a snarky front-desk clerk, a kindly hotel worker, a scene-stealing dog, and a mysterious visitor knocking at night (it’s clear that we’re being placed in a dream world, accented by the hotel’s eerie isolation in a foggy nowhere). The sparse dialogue and odd mysteries of the hotel echo Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things, another film that delved into its creator’s psyche, but the journey is less rewarding here. The Eternal Daughter is laden with symbolism that’s intriguing to study, but its glacial pacing and lack of plot make it challenging to enjoy. PG13. RAY GILL JR. Studio One.

HOLY SPIDER

A man is strangling sex workers in the holy city of Mashhad, Iran. Almost immediately in director Ali Abbasi’s film, we find out why—a so-called jihad against vice—and, more surprisingly, who. It’s a cardson-the-table approach that’s just true crime if you know the 2000-01 saga of the Spider Killer and resembles a deconstructed thriller plot if you don’t. Journalist Arezoo Rahimi (Zar Amir Ebrahimi) is our investigator, but the primary character is the strangler, Saeed Hanaei (Mehdi Bajestani), as Abbasi lays bare the murderer’s process and the toxic cocktail of shame and hate that drives both him and many of the men depicted within the Iranian theocracy. That’s a fascinating theme, but foregrounding it makes Holy Spider a foregone, pitiless experience. A critical car chase is undershot, and suspense is replaced by unblinking, exploitative dramatic irony during murder scenes. And despite her Best Actress win at Cannes, Ebrahimi is given few dynamics to play beyond basic journalistic determination and requisite terror. Unquestionably, Holy Spider packs a gut punch, released into a world where Iranian women are fighting openly for their lives against the malevolent patriarchy explored here. But as a piece of filmmaking, its fixation on sheer impact snuffs out story, character and even humanity.

SOLEM-PFEIFER.

NR. CHANCE

Cinema 21.

MINUS TIDE

by Calico Jack minustidecomic

by

“You got the ‘Ho Ho’ part great. But let’s focus on the entire line.”

Jack Kent