Nineteen food carts at two downtown Portland pods could shut down in September after the property owner told Mayor Keith Wilson and the City Council that city waste disposal rules make the sites financially unworkable.

Matt Goodman, co-president of the Downtown Development Group and a fourth-generation Portland real estate developer, sent the July 28 letter warning that his company will close pods at SW 3rd Avenue and Washington Street (15 carts) and SW 2nd Avenue and Oak Street (4 carts) rather than spend what he called hundreds of thousands of dollars on required sewer hookups and grease interceptors.

"Portland's decision to implement unique code requirements sends entirely the wrong message to small business owners and operators at a time when our city should be making great strides to keep them," Goodman wrote in the letter, first reported by Willamette Week.

The rules at issue were adopted in 2020 but not enforced until 2023, after pandemic delays. They require food cart pods to install centralized sewer connections and grease interceptors. Goodman argues Portland went further than the Oregon Health Authority's statewide code by mandating that infrastructure, which he says is appropriate for permanent restaurants but not temporary cart clusters.

The Bureau of Environmental Services sees it differently. Spokesman Brandon Zero told Willamette Week that 77 of the city's roughly 90 pods have already complied.

Nine more are in development, have requested extensions, or haven't reached their deadline. Only three remain out of compliance. Zero said noncompliant operators received multiple notifications between 2023 and 2026 and were offered technical assistance.

The compliance burden falls on property owners, not individual cart operators, because owners control site conditions and discharges, according to BES.

That distinction matters to people like Leo, owner of Don Jalapeño, who has served customers at the SW 3rd and Washington pod for five years. "I don't want to move because I like this spot," he told KATU. "They ask me, 'What are you going to do? Where are you going to go?' I don't know."

District 4 Councilor Mitch Green, who represents downtown, responded quickly. Green told Willamette Week on Wednesday, July 29, that he read Goodman's letter the morning it arrived and immediately requested a meeting with the developer. Green said he has a special interest in street food as part of downtown's economy.

Goodman framed the dispute as part of a pattern, comparing the waste rules to the Portland Bureau of Transportation's brief attempt to extend paid parking hours downtown, a policy PBOT retracted after public backlash. Both, he argued, are city rules that serve the city's own goals while harming downtown recovery.

Not every pod operator has found compliance impossible. OregonLive reported that Midtown Beer Garden, located blocks from Goodman's SW 3rd pod, completed its sewer hookup during a 2023 renovation sponsored by Portland-based software company Expensify. Roughly 250 standalone carts citywide are exempt from the pod-specific rules entirely.

As of July 30, Mayor Wilson's office had not responded to Goodman's letter or to requests for comment from Willamette Week and KATU.

No date has been set for Green's requested meeting with Goodman, and no public hearing or comment deadline has been announced for this dispute.