Earlier this week a Bridgetown Bites tipster emailed me news that Ole Frijole, located on the northwest corner of Killingsworth and NE 42nd Ave, has closed. They wrote, “My neighbor mentioned that she just read a sweet message to customers posted on their door saying that they closed and the property has been sold.” Looks like the closure was one month ago on May 4.
The Real Estate Listing for Ole Frijole
According to Loopnet, the property is Under Contract, as of the writing of this article. Here’s the listing description from the real estate agency, Marcus & Millichap:
“This locally-owned restaurant has called this location home since 2002 and is a highly-rated staple of the Concordia neighborhood. The tenant currently operates under a triple-net lease expiring in June of 2026, featuring minimal landlord responsibilities and three percent annual rental increases.
“The restaurant is located at the corner of a signalized intersection and is directly across the street from Portland Community College’s newly developed Opportunity Center. The property boasts an 86 “Walk Score” and a 97 “Bike Score” and benefits from its proximity to the area’s major highways, Portland International Airport (PDX), and Downtown Portland. The CM2 (Commercial Mixed-Use 2) zoning designation for the parcel provides an array of potential uses for the property.”
Here’s a pretty version of the listing.
Ole Frijole’s Goodbye Note
Here’s the text of the goodbye note—it is thoughtful, sad, and summarizes what many restaurants are experiencing in this economy and its post-pandemic landscape.
Dear Customers,
We are sadden to announce that after two decades of serving our delicious Mexican comfort food, we have made the difficult decision to close our doors for good.
With heavy hearts and a fighting spirit, we abruptly found ourselves having to close our doors one last time on Saturday, May 4th. It has been nothing short of a labor of love to have shared our cooking with all of you. We appreciate and value everyone’s patronage over the years and from the bottom of our hearts apologize for the sudden closure.
As with many small restaurants struggling with the impact of the pandemic, the residual lingering effects of labor shortages, combined with increasing high cost of food and labor, and the increasing costs of leasing this building, we were not longer able to keep up with the expenses of running Ole Frijole. Not helping things in the matter, was also the impending sale of the property we currently lease which only served to accelerate our untimely closure. We thank you again for all your years of loyalty and for the memories you created.
You will be missed,
Ole Frijole
What Has Disappeared
Ole Frijole served what is considered “Mexican comfort food”: big plates of food and massive burritos, as well as tacos, sopes, chimichangas, tortas, quesadillas, nachos, tamales, and taquitos. There was also menudo and pozole. And burgers. They even offered machaca as one of their torta meat options, which is not that easy to find (it is my husband’s favorite).
Much of this I would consider now to be “American food,” where immigrants bring their dishes and food cultures with them, and adjust them to the tastes of their adopted country. See also: Chifa (Chinese Peruvian food), Indian-Chinese cuisine, Indian pizza and Indian-Mexican food, not to mention American-style Chinese food accessible throughout the U.S.
The interior of the restaurant definitely had a fast food feel to it, especially with the style of booths. It was very casual. According to Portland Maps, the building was built in 1970. Long-time Portlanders say that the location was home to a couple of burger joints in Mr. Burger and Arctic Circle. And before that, it was a gas station.
Whether you like this kind of food or not, Portland has lost yet another local, independent family-run restaurant.
What’s Next?
I had wondered recently if the place had closed; now I have my answer. I am very curious to see what happens to this property if it does indeed sell. Will it remain as-is? My guess is not. It is zoned CM2hm(MU-N): medium-scale commercial mixed use (usually up to 4-stories) with an airport landing (h, which could limit the number of stories) and Centers Main Street (m) overlay. MU-N means mixed-use neighborhood.
As a corner lot, it has a lot of value and it would not surprise me if a developer found that to be a particularly tasty location. Allowable uses stipulated with this base zoning include “retail sales and services, office space, household living, vehicle repair, institutional uses and limited manufacturing uses.” As for parking—a topic that is often on Portlanders’ minds when it comes to new developments, it “is generally not required for non-residential uses, or for residential development that contains fewer than 30 dwelling units when development is located near transit.” It is near the 75 and 72 bus routes, which are very active and popular transit options.
I wish the Ole Frijole folks only the best as they move forward on a new path.
Ole Frijole [closed May 2024]
4125 NE Killingsworth Street, Portland
Google listing
Meg Cotner
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Not to be a downer to this sweet goodbye to a neighborhood restaurant But we ate at this restaurant end of April and the food tasted off while we were eating it. We stopped after a few bites. 24 hrs later we were hit with horrible food poisoning and months later still dealing with complications. I was shocked to see the restaurant went out of business so soon after this occurred and would like to know if there were any health code violations involved or if anyone else got sick?
You can find Restaurant Inspections here in an easy to digest way, thanks to The Oregonian: https://restaurants.oregonlive.com/inspections/
And for Ole Frijole, here: https://restaurants.oregonlive.com/inspections/?name=ole+frijole&address_1=
Sorry to hear you were dealing with food poisoning and its legacy in your system. I can’t speak to having a similar experience at Ole Frijole, but I know GI distress is an unpleasant thing to deal with.
Yes they did in fact have a health code violation soon after we ate there and a few weeks before they closed. It’s dishonest this reason for closing wasn’t known to people. I will continue to research if others were also sickened by their food and with what exactly.
As a counterpoint–I ate lunch there once a week for years and suffered no ill effects from it (well, my waistline suffered a bit). They had the best tortas in town, were unfailingly friendly, and I will miss them terribly.