Best Food Carts in Portland

Updated February 25th, 2022.

In all of my travels, I have not been in (or heard of) any other city in the world that has as many diverse food carts as Portland, Oregon. These are some of the best places to eat in Portland on a budget.

Food trucks in Oregon, in particular Portland, are called food carts. Why? Because they are established eateries that tend to stay in one place. With well over 600 (and counting) food carts, they are usually found in clusters throughout the city, called pods.

Every food cart pod contains an incredibly delicious mish-mash of different flavors. Culinary dishes from just about every corner of the world are represented. From good ol’ fashioned burgers ‘n fries, to soul food/bbq, to savory thai noodles, to Chinese and Ethiopian dishes, to….well, you get the idea.

Many food carts become so popular that they are able to transition into brick and mortar restaurants. And a great many carts are run by honest-to-gosh chefs…not lazy wanna-be short order cooks. Your typical roach coach will not last long here…too much competition. So why is the Portland food cart scene so massive and gastronomically delicious?

As with many of my posts, I like to throw in a sentence or two of history. (History was my worst subject in school, so in adulthood, I try my best.) These next few paragraphs were taken from Quora with regards to why Portland is the king of food carts.

The food truck is the perfect solution. Low cost to operate, low cost to buy product from. Every truck is a different and unique offering. Portland is a very bohemian city. That same bohemian lifestyle that embraces creativity and freedom of expression tends to also eschew both homogenized chain food and also disposable income.

A few things that are true about Portland but not necessarily true about other cities:

Downtown Portland is relatively dense and pedestrian-friendly yet has a lot of surface parking lots. One way to use these lots is to lease space to food carts. Once the first cart pod took off sometime around the year 2000, owners of parking lots were eager to expand the model to other lots. Pods eventually spread out from downtown and can now be found in many other parts of the city.
Operating a food cart in Portland is simple and inexpensive. Oregon has provisions for carts to operate without a separate commissary kitchen and having a single location means that a cart faces significantly less regulatory overhead.
Restaurant owners do not like the idea that a food truck could conceivably show up across the street and siphon off business. Food carts with fixed locations to not create the same kind of animosity, so there is no strong organized opposition to them. By comparison, Seattle’s newly-relaxed laws still include provisions limiting the ability of trucks to operate near restaurants.

In short, leasing space to food carts is a good deal for Portland’s landowners and operating a food cart is not ruinously expensive in Portland like it is in many other cities. Everybody likes good, cheap food, but not every city is in the position to foster a cart scene as robust as Portland’s.

So as you can imagine, providing a list of must-check-out food carts for this article was insanely difficult. But I managed to widdle it down to a baker’s dozen. I have personally been to every one of these carts and I can honestly tell you that the food at every one is mind-blowingly delicious.

As with any food establishment, some tend to come and go, but the food carts I’ve selected have managed to stand the test of time. At the end of this article is an updated map of every food cart pod in the city. So if you’re looking for a certain type of food, or have dietary restrictions, this is a good resource. There are also many gluten-free options (of course!) to be found.

Bon Appetit !!

Kingsland Kitchen

This popular food cart has graduated to brick and mortar (that opened September 2017). British Chef Chris Payne and his lovely American wife dish up authentic, meat-centric English dishes (bangers and mash, here I come!) in downtown Portland for breakfast and lunch. Weekdays only. **This food cart has closed. Go to their newly-opened restaurant on 3rd and Pine!

Matt’s BBQ

Hands down, some of the best BBQ in the city, and certainly the best BBQ food cart. Slow-cooked, mouth-watering, finger-lickin’, fall-off-the-bone goodness. They also do catering!

Viking Soul Food

I am of part Norwegian decent, so this cart holds a special place on my palette. Choose from sweet, savory and sides. Their lefse is out of this world!

Fried Egg I’m in Love

Yet another beloved food cart that has graduated to brick and mortar status!! My favorite food cart for breakfast, and in addition to the new restaurant on Hawthorne Blvd., they still have two food carts in other locations in town. I have traveled over 10 miles for their incredible brekkie sammiches and not batted an eyelash. They cook their eggs with a sprinkle of Magic Egg Dusk. I’m not lying. Go ask ‘em.

Mama Chow’s Kitchen

I practically grew up on Chinese take out. It was my favorite go-to food for when Mom was out and we had to fend for ourselves for dinner. So over the years I’ve learned to judge a Chinese food place by the quality of their fried rice. Mama Chow’s has some of the best in the city. The menu is limited but the quality is not.

Kee’s #Loaded Kitchen

One of the best soul food meals I’ve had in a long while! Kiauna (Kee for short) built this now hugely popular food cart using her mad business skills and self-taught culinary prowess. The result? Freshly made fried catfish, fried chicken, BBQ, and tons of savory house-made sides that will have you rolling home, or back to wherever you came from.

MELT

The Grilled Cheese Grill food cart that actually started in a school bus sadly closed during the height of the pandemic, and has now realized a resurgence in the newest iteration of MELT. Located in the NE Killingsworth neighborhood, this ain’t yo Momma’s grilled cheese….well, maybe it is, without the Momma. Choose from a cornucopia of breads and cheeses, with various add-ons. Childhood never tasted so good.

Pyro Pizza

A food cart churning out authentic crispy, chewy, wood-fired crust pizzas? What will they think of next? Pair that with breadsticks and salad and you’ve got the classic pizza full meal deal. Local ingredients make for a high-quality pie!

NOW for the million dollar question: What Portland food carts have YOU been to and which are your favorite! Leave a comment below! Below are some links to the updated Portland Food Cart kingdom!