Category: Neighborhood Newsletter

What’s Your Bandwidth For Emergency Preparedness?

Here are some questions to get you moving forward:

• What skills, talents, and/or tools do you have to offer to your family, neighbors, etc. as part of emergency preparedness? How do these communities know about what you have to offer?

• Do you know the skills, talents and tools that your neighbors, housemates, etc. have to offer?

• How much time/money/effort do you have to devote to being prepared?

• What’s your next step? And the step after that?

So much has been done citywide, countywide, and statewide towards being prepared and it’s easy enough to find articles, lists, and steps to take. Start there. Keep going. It’s not easy, but it is doable. We need all of us to do our part. 

That’s that. Thanks so much for reading this and doing your work. It’s much appreciated.

Be prepared, not scared.

Sunnyside Neighborhood Community Cares (SNACC) Committee Updates

The Sunnyside Neighborhood Association and SNACC Committee (SNACC) recently hosted an art show featuring works by neighbors living outside. The event was a big success and raised $364 to go toward repairing windows at the Sunnyside Methodist Church, which is the home of the Sunnyside Shower Project. Thank you to all who came out and supported this event! In our September meeting, SNACC continued our work to extend operating hours at the Sunnyside Shower Project (SSP). We hope to open the SSP for four days per week by the end of October and are working with church leaders to fulfill this need, which was identified on the needs assessment completed in the spring. Additionally, we are piloting a facilitated discussion process for reaching consensus in decision making. In our October meeting, we will practice this process by discussing the role of neighborhood associations in taking political stances, specifically focusing on charter reform. If you are interested in attending, next month’s SNACC meeting will be Thursday October 20th from 6:30p.m. Please check the SNA website or email [email protected] in the coming weeks for the meeting location, agenda items, and other information about SNACC work.

Sunnyside Neighborhood: Getting to Know Your Neighbors

Monster Smash Burgers food cart on Southeast Stark, is serving up some great pub fare including—of course—an excellent smash burger made from grass-fed beef on a brioche bun made by Dos Hermanos bakery. (For the uninitiated, a smash burger is minced beef and salt, smashed flat over a searingly hot ungreased grill until you get a thin, crispy patty that’s both juicy and caramelized.) We asked Rico about his culinary experience and what it’s like for him living in Sunnyside and serving his neighbors through his new food cart. 

When did you start Monster Smash?

Rico: When I got laid off from my previous job at Malekko Heavy Industry during Covid in 2021. Our official opening day was February 6th 2021. 

What was the inspiration for opening the cart?

Rico: I had been a chef for about 15 years in the Bay Area. I burnt out, decided on a career change, and went into the music industry which, weirdly, led me into building synthesizers. I moved to Portland about nine years ago to take a job with Malekko building synthesizers and guitar pedals. While at Malekko, I started to miss cooking and at the same time I was feeling the need to do something of my own. When we moved into our Sunnyside house I became friends with Monk who was running Monk’s Deli at the time (a beloved cheesesteak cart). He was starting to burn out and as we talked more we began to discuss me buying the cart from him. When Covid hit, it was the final straw for him and I had the time to write a business plan, menu, and concept. 

What restaurants have you worked at in the past?

Rico: All the places I’ve worked at were in the Bay Area or Tahoe. I worked at Kuleto’s, The Waterfront, Hotel W, Swiss Lakewood, and many others that are no longer around. My final job was as a chef instructor at the California Culinary Academy in SF where I had been a student early on in my food career.

How do you want your customers to feel? What do you want them to experience?

Rico: We want people to be happy. Belmont Station is a great place to partner with. We wanted to bring good, simple food that worked well with beer but at the same time would work for families. A small, simple menu done right is what I’ve strived for. I personally hate waiting for food when I’m really hungry, so part of my goal was to cook fast food but with quality
ingredients. Smash burgers luckily fit that criteria perfectly.

What is the best food?

Rico: Oh that’s a hard one and no way I could pick one, especially in Portland where there are so many amazing places to eat. Italian food is always very close to my heart. The first place I ever worked was German so good German food really makes me smile. I love it all, to be honest. As long as it’s cooked with care and passion, I’m down.

What’s your favorite part of running Monster Smash?

Rico: To be honest, my biggest fear was dealing with the public and that has ultimately been one of the best parts. I have met so many amazing people through the cart and have made some really great friends. It also never gets old hearing people say how much they enjoyed their meal. It’s been really cool getting to know people in our neighborhood as we have lived here for a while and most people only knew our dog’s name (Maggie).

What’s your favorite part of living in Sunnyside?

Rico: It’s a great community. It’s the first place we have lived where we feel like part of the neighborhood. It’s quiet, peaceful, and beautiful. Also, we are perfectly located, in my opinion, next to a ton of great food and bars. 

What’s your favorite part of running a business in Sunnyside?

Rico: Living next door to my business is pretty nice, to be honest. The support of the neighborhood has been great and I really appreciate how kind everyone has been. I love being able to be a part of the Sunnyside neighborhood.

What was the most challenging part of running a small business?

Rico: While Covid allowed me to do this business, it was also very challenging. The other incredibly hard part has been the weather. The really cold days in the winter and these crazy heat waves we have been having really hurt our business. This summer alone we have had to close over 3 weeks due to the heat. Our cart is usually about 20 – 30 degrees hotter inside than outside so when it’s over 95 we have to shut down for the safety of my employees.

What’s your favorite type of customer? 

Rico: Friendly customers that enjoy their meal! It’s really hard work in the cart so when people are friendly it makes all the difference in the world. My crew works their butts off and tips help them a ton. Patience when they are really busy goes a long way. We are humans and we do make mistakes. Sometimes people can be pretty mean and use Yelp as a way of bashing us. Those are the customers I don’t like…lol.

Monster Smash Burgers is open Tuesday-Saturday 12-8, Sunday 12-6. Closed Mondays.  Also on the menu is a vegan smash burger with Beyond beef; french fries; and a grilled cheese BLT. In winter months, look for the return of a soup and sando combo: tomato bisque and a pesto, genoa salami and melted provolone sandwich which Oregonian critic Michael Russell called “a contender for the best grilled cheese in the city right now.”  

Follow Rico on Instagram at @MonsterSmashPDX

Last Month’s News. This Month’s Plans.

As I write this at the end of August we just had our first Board Meeting with our newly formed board. We elected Chris Waldmann to be our President but we plan to rotate some of the duties traditionally performed by President between four board members over the coming year to give each of us a chance to be presiding officer. Each person will assume these duties for three months (Chris being the first) but Chris will remain the official elected President. Chris, who has lived in Sunnyside for six years, has been a board member for a year and was formerly the president of his neighborhood association in Washington, D.C. 

The SNACC committee has been busy organizing two volunteer orientations for later this week. We hope to gain a handful of new Shower Project volunteers as a result. 

We will hold the General Meetings on the 2nd Thursday of the month, as per usual, but the new board has decided to have a General Meeting only every other month. There will be a General Meeting in September, November, January, etc. (One way to remember it is that they happen on odd numbered months.)

Our Sept. 8th General Meeting will be held in person at Southeast Uplift (3534 SE Main St.) from 7-8:30 p.m. (We plan to have a Zoom link for those who don’t want to attend in person. Check the website for details a few days before.) Our guest speaker will be Melanie Billings-Yun from the City Charter Review Commission. She will speak about the upcoming Portland Charter Commission ballot initiative, so come prepared with questions. This will be an important meeting because at the end, we would like the SNA membership to vote on whether or not to endorse the initiative. We need at least 15 members present in person or on Zoom in order to hold a full vote. If we don’t have at least 15 members, the board will vote on the measure, but we really want to have a larger neighborhood voice on this issue. So, please join us and bring a Sunnyside friend!

We hope to see you in September!

Every Month is a Preparedness Month!

Searching on social media it is easy to find a monthly preparedness topic, usually connected to seasonal weather patterns. There are national preparedness month designations and they may vary depending on where you live in the world. Here is a useful link for a year-round preparedness calendar: https://www.ready.gov/calendar

As a Sunnyside Portland NET (Neighborhood Emergency Team) member, I am trained to prepare for the most severe event, which in our part of the world is an earthquake. So, if you are prepared for an earthquake, you are essentially prepared for any weather emergency. It’s a cascading (no pun intended) continuum.

Sunnysiders are advised to ‘start where you are’ and build from there. Depending upon your family status, you probably have different needs for preparedness. If possible, involve family members in your eprep, and maybe some close neighbors and friends as well.

Consider ‘mapping your neighborhood’ * so that you form greater connections to your neighbors and become aware of the skills and resources that are available if/when they are needed. Neighborhood is loosely defined to include your workplace, school, etc. 

Like anything worth doing, this takes time, effort, and cooperation. Feel free to contact me at [email protected] if you have questions.

* Continue to use creative ways to connect to your neighbors during this time of COVID. Here are some ideas: snail mail a card to a new or old neighbor, create a chalk drawing on the sidewalk in front of where you live, walk around and greet others on your block. What else might you do?