Salt & Straw got its start at a pushcart in the Alberta Arts District, fresh ice cream arriving in the cooler strapped to the roof of Tyler Malek’s blue Subaru. While Kim and Tyler Malek are now selling small-batch ice-cream in Disneyland and Miami’s Coconut Grove, the cousins’ sense of – and belief in – community was shaped by the city where it all began.
In the last six months, the Maleks’ faith in Portland hasn’t been threatened. But their employees have, repeatedly, near the 15,000-square-foot kitchen Salt & Straw opened in the Central Eastside Industrial District in 2017.
“Threatened. Propositioned for sex. Followed with a knife,” Kim Malek says. “They work a full shift, then go out and find their car so damaged they can’t drive home. That happens a lot. Several times a month.
“We have 50 employees who show up at all hours of the day and night, to make ice cream and take care of the facility. It’s not responsible of me to allow them to show up where they have a gun put to their face when they walk from their transportation to the front door at nine in the morning.”
Kim Malek’s distress peaked early last week when an RV, sleeping quarters for the homeless, went up in flames at Southeast 3rd Avenue and Ash Street. The fire scorched a transformer, shutting down power at Salt & Straw headquarters and other area businesses.
Malek didn’t go public with her frustration. A friend, Thomas Lauderdale, did. When she was eventually interviewed by The Oregonian/OregonLive, Malek raised the possibility of moving the company headquarters out of Southeast: “If we can’t make it safe, I can’t stay here. It’s just not responsible of me to put my team in that position.”
Running a Portland business is quite the slog these days. Margins are thin. Business taxes are brutal, costs inflated. “Hiring” signs are everywhere. You have to wonder who couldn’t relate to an innovated, dedicated business owner at the breaking point.
Thanks to Twitter, wonder no more.
“Can you imagine a corporation that would threaten to leave a city because someone’s home burned down near their headquarters?” wrote Elliott Young, a history professor at Lewis & Clark College. “Instead of offering help, Salt & Straw wants to pack up its waffle cones and flee to the burbs. Enjoy your gated community.”
Then there was this from Wm. Steven Humphrey, editor of The Mercury:
“Many Mercury employees (including myself) have been shot at, tear gassed and assaulted by law enforcement – all while trying to do our jobs. It hasn’t occurred to me once to move my business ‘out of state.’”
That’s a curious analogy, Mr. Humphrey, given that your employees – bless ‘em all – are paid to run toward the smoke and fire, while Kim Malek’s are paid to whip up Almond Brittle w/ Salted Ganache.
What accounts for these kneejerk reactions? As Malek says, “I’m asking for help to keep my employees safe. That’s all I’m asking for.” When a (relatively) small business owner candidly expresses her concern for the safety of her team and the health of her city, what invites such mockery and disdain?
Young, who lives not far from Cleveland High School in Southeast, was kind enough to elaborate on the perspective he brought to that tweet.
“It was a reaction to a corporation dealing with problems in a city that has been supportive of their business,” Young says. “Offering solutions on how local businesses could deal with homelessness and crime in that neighborhood would be a better corporate response than leaving the city.”
Young also argues that – notwithstanding the city’s record-breaking homicide rate and those smash-and-grabs at the Pearl District REI – “crime rates are at historic lows. Obviously, people want them to be lower, but I don’t think the solution is increased policing.” Malek’s appeal, he adds, “seemed to be a call for increased policing, and I think that’s how the city is responding to it.”
At the very least, then, Young’s convictions about police and crime are at odds with the on-the-ground experience of Salt & Straw employees. And when that disagreement is amplified in the sullen echo chamber of social media?
“This is hard,” Kim Malek says. “I don’t want to throw gasoline on the fire. But our stores have gotten phone calls and threats since I spoke out. And (there have been) threats to me personally.”
On Thursday, Mayor Ted Wheeler told me, “This is well-trodden ground for me. People who speak out, and who don’t carry a far-left viewpoint, put themselves at risk in this city.”
He mentioned the vandalism at the Bison Coffeehouse in October after Loretta Guzman, the Cully café's owner, advertised a Coffee with a Cop event: “What she got in exchange for that was six people trashing the store.”
Malek and her neighbors certainly have the city’s attention. Wheeler, who believes clean-up efforts in Old Town may have heightened crime issues on the central eastside, took the stage at the Eastside Exchange ballroom Tuesday night to field complaints.
And Malek, who says she has no time for Twitter, is encouraged by the support she’s received since this story broke.
“You know who has really showed up? All of our elected officials,” Malek says. “There’s new leadership in a lot of positions. Windows are starting to open. I feel really hopeful for the first time in a few years. I think that’s so important for Portland to hear. We need some hope. We need a way out of this.”
-- Steve Duin
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