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COURTESY OF EVERYBODY EATS PDX

Last year, while making my first visit to Everybody Eats PDX, I drove around the parking lot for nearly 20 minutes trying to find a sign or entrance for the new soul food spot. Eventually, I poked my head inside the Oriental Value Food grocery, and spotted a graffiti wall reading “Everybody Eats PDX.”

That’s where the titular lunch counter used to reside, inside a supermarket out on Southeast 173rd and Powell, which for a lot of us is a long trek for a plate of (albeit exceptional) comfort food. But last May, chef duo Marcell Goss and Johnny Huff Jr. moved into its first brick-and-mortar location in a coveted, high traffic Pearl District space that used to house Marinepolis Sushi Land.

Marcell Goss and Johnny Huff Jr. grew up in North and Northeast Portland respectively, but didn’t meet until they both partnered with Damian Lillard’s chef for an event. After working the event, the two began cooking for other Trail Blazers players, and they discovered they both had the same vision: opening a soul food restaurant that also had the ability to give back. For example, last June, the duo teamed up with former mayoral candidate Teressa Raiford of Don’t Shoot PDX to give 200 free meals to those protesting for the liberation of Black lives. Since they started their business during the pandemic and have made it a point to give back, including a free item on Wednesdays (everybody eats), their Everybody Eats title is somewhat literal. Although they no longer offer free items on Wednesdays, their alignment to the movement remains embedded in their business practices and in their visual representation.

“We secured our last location at the Oriental Food market to make it a commissary kitchen for all of our catering orders and prep-cook space for when we do pop-up events and festivals,” says Huff Jr. of moving into their first space in January 2020, a couple months before COVID reached the US. When the pandemic hit and prompted lockdowns, Everybody Eats lost 90 percent of their catering and pop-up calendar bookings. They were forced to shift their business model.

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