Ripe Cooperative, an elegant solution to a problem few foresaw, will close after two years in the former home of Beast, chef Naomi Pomeroy announced Wednesday.
“It is with a heavy heart that we announce we’ve decided it’s time to move on,” Pomeroy wrote on Ripe’s website. “We aren’t quite sure what’s next, but the equation here will not solve.”
The closure marks the end of 15 years in the same Concordia neighborhood building for Pomeroy, who first opened Beast in 2007 as a triumphant return after the dissolution of Ripe, the celebrated supper club turned restaurant group opened with then-husband Michael Hebb. During that time, the chef and her restaurant took home a trunk full of awards, including The Oregonian’s co-Restaurant of the Year (with Le Pigeon) honor in 2008, and a James Beard Award win for Pomeroy in 2014.
But after closing Beast at the beginning of the pandemic, Pomeroy quickly realized her fine-dining restaurant was ill equipped to survive the pandemic. With six feet of social distancing in place, the 800-square-foot restaurant (kitchen and bathrooms included) might be able to accommodate eight customers in total, about a third of its pre-COVID capacity.
Instead, Pomeroy transformed the space into Ripe Cooperative, a restaurant-market hybrid with shelves stocked with wine and freshly installed fridges packed with homemade pastas and sauce, take-and-bake shepherd’s pies and pints of frozen custard.
“I don’t want to call this the death of fine dining,” Pomeroy said in 2020. “It’s just a really big retooling of what dining out means.”
Pomeroy and partner Kyle Linden Webster continue to operate Expatriate, a celebrated cocktail bar across the street, and Pomeroy has held onto the Beast name. In her closure announcement, Pomeroy hinted that Ripe — or at least its yolk-rich frozen custard — could be seen again “in some shape or form.”
Ripe isn’t the only prominent local restaurant closure this month. In Lake Oswego, the ChefStable group announced that Lac St. Jack, the Lake Oswego outpost of Northwest Portland’s popular St. Jack, would close on October 29, followed less than a month later by Fills, a burger and doughnut shop in the same Mercato Grove complex.
Ripe’s final hours of operation are this Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 3 to 10 p.m. at 5425 N.E. 30th Ave., ripecooperative.com; Lac St. Jack will run through Saturday, October 29 and Fills through Wednesday, November 23 at 3955 Mercantile Drive in Lake Oswego
— Michael Russell; mrussell@oregonian.com; @tdmrussell
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