Burger Ritual Has Opened at Cartopia in Portland

The other day I got news of the opening of a new cart in the Cartopia food cart pod called Burger Ritual. I was intrigued by the people behind the business, and was really taken by their branding, in part as someone who spent time studying Medieval music. So, I reached out to see if we could get together and chat about the business and their work. Here is what I learned.

Who Is Behind Burger Ritual?

The founders of Burger Ritual are Mike McKinney and Andrey Sitnikov. They met at the Cartopia pod. “Andrey had been working next door at Chicken and Guns,” explained Mike. “I was managing the property, and so over three years working at the pod we got to know each other.”

Mike has been working in food carts since 2008; Andrey since 2020. He has quite a bit of experience in restaurants—mostly in the U.S. but also in Moscow, where he is from.

They decided to collaborate as Burger Ritual, offering great food, drink, and a “ritual experience”: making sure people have a good time there at their little corner of Portland.

Burger Ritual is the newest cart to open in Cartopia.

Burger Ritual: The Name Origin Story

I was curious to learn why they decided to call it Burger Ritual. “I’d been rolling around names for quite a while,” explained Mike. “Initially, I naturally wanted to go with an occult feel, or something with a bit of magick to it.”

Hey went through a variety of word combinations, with “burger” being in many of them. “And then I saw the combination because I had ‘ritual’ in one phrase and ‘burger’ in another,” he said. “It was actually ‘smash ritual’ that I had put side by side, but I didn’t like it. When I wrote ‘burger ritual’ that felt really good, very natural.”

He then contacted a friend who works for an agency, and shared the name. They worked together on some ideas (Mike at first had a sigil type of logo in mind). They realized they both liked Medieval art, and after his friend delivered some Medieval imagery, “it felt so right.”

I asked Andrey what he thought, and he said, “On the Russian internet, there is a huge movement that started with Medieval memes. They would take Medieval paintings and do the comic style bubbles and characters.” The platform he is referring to is VK and the meme is “sad medieval.”

When Mike told him about the Medieval imagery idea for the brand he was pretty excited because of how familiar the look was to him. He remarked, “In Russia, they love this type of content!”

On the topic of the Medieval era, we also discussed Hildegard, the Medieval Times restaurant chain, and how the symbolism of Medieval feasts involves breaking bread and gathering together.

Prior to Burger Ritual…

I wanted to know a little bit about Mike and Andrey’s past work.

Mike’s Background

Mike—who is also the manager there at Cartopia—was the original owner of Potato Champion. It’s a cart that still operates at Cartopia, but under different ownership (Mike sold it three years ago). They made french fries and poutine.

After Potato Champion, Mike was involved with Bottle Rocket, which was also at Cartopia, offering burgers, brews, and sides. “I was involved in that but I was more a silent partner,” said Mike. “So when I was able to buy out the partners, that’s when we did this.” This, meaning Burger Ritual, which is in the old Bottle Rocket cart in the pod.

Mike told me that he didn’t do much in the way of food prior to his time at Cartopia. “I only worked at a bit of food experience on my end,” he said. “I didn’t work in a lot of kitchens. I mostly did like pizza delivery and whatnot. I didn’t have a big food background.”

He continued, “I kind of ended up in food carts because, thankfully, there was a moment before I opened Potato Champion that I was maybe looking for a brick and mortar. But I’m really thankful that didn’t happen. I was able to open Potato Champion, be very green, make mistakes and learn, and without spending too much money getting it started.”

Andrey’s Background

Andrey told me that he started out as a lawyer before he found himself in the kitchen. He began in Russia. “It was a gastropub that was named in the World’s 50 Best Bars in 2012, I think,” he explained. “. I started helping on weekends for free, not getting paid, at the bar. So I cooked there for a little bit, then I met my now ex. She lived in the U.S. at a time, and I was planning on going to culinary school in the U.S.

“So I went to New York, where I got my culinary education, during a nine month course at the Institute of Culinary Education. They helped me with placement, and so I started working at NoMad restaurant, a sister restaurant to Eleven Madison Park. And then from there, I worked at L’Atelier [de Joël Robuchon], which is a two-star Michelin restaurant, and I worked at Homestead.” This is a restaurant from a former sous chef of Alinea, who opened it in Brooklyn.

“And the last place where I worked before COVID hit was Aska, which is a Scandinavian restaurant—it had a two Michelin-star tasting menu. I worked there for a year and a little bit, then COVID hit, and then me and my now former friend, decided to open the food cart. We were considering different cities to move to from New York City, because New York food carts are mostly just small carts, like Halal or hot dogs.”

I’d add that smaller carts also include tamale ladies, shave ice carts (raspados, diablitos), obleas, paletas, and arepas. Larger food trucks tend to be in the outer boroughs (though I remember coming across the Big Gay Ice Cream truck in Manhattan from time to time).

I’ll further add that getting a food cart license in NYC can be an epic journey. And also that the food cart scene in Portland is much further along, varied, and expansive compared to NYC.

Andrey and his business partner chose Portland (Austin was also being considered), and they went through a few concepts. Eventually they opened Summit Shack, which offered sandwiches, including a lauded spicy fried chicken sandwich. They lasted for a little over a year, at the Sellwood Corner food carts in Sellwood-Moreland, then later at CORE on SE 82nd Avenue.

The Burger Ritual Menu

It’s a small food menu with a cheeseburger and a hot dog as the main characters. The burger consists of two smashed patties with American cheese, onion, shredded lettuce, pickles, and burger sauce, all on a sesame seed bun. The meat is conventional (meaning, not organic), and is a high-fat content beef. This allows them to fry the beef off the hot griddle extremely quickly to get the results they are looking for.

I really liked how the sesame seed bun did not overpower the burger, yet was substantial enough not to fall apart. I loved the crispy edges around the outer reaches of each of the two 2oz patties. Nice to have that creaminess of the American cheese to contrast. They do not skimp on the burger sauce, either. This felt like a solid cheeseburger.

The hot dog starts with a Zenner’s frank, and is topped with ketchup/mustard, pickles, and fried onions; you can add slaw, too.

For both of these items, you can also add bacon.

They have five sides: waffle fries, fried pickles, fried Brussels sprouts, green bean salad, and a cabbage fennel slaw. The fried Brussels sprouts blew me away and are one of my very favorite things I’ve eaten all year.

The drink menu has a lot to offer: cocktails, mocktails, draft beer, ginger lemonade, and a whole variety of other beverages.

Menu Favorites

Although it’s a small menu at Burger Ritual, I asked them if they had any favorites on it—like something you could eat every day. “I love the green bean salad,” said Mike. “It’s just very, very fresh, spicy, and nutty from the toasted sesame, with a good depth of flavor.”

Pickles

Andrey said, “My favorite thing—and it took me a lot of time to figure out—is probably fried pickles. They’re indulgent.” I asked what kind of batter they used (my first exposure to fried pickles was in Astoria, Queens and those were kind of beer-battered) and he said, “We do it with panko.”

He explained that it’s a three-layered breading: first the flour, then seasoned buttermilk, then dipped into the panko, and finally fried. They then season them salt and dry dill weed. I gave them a try and enjoyed them quite a lot—they were dry, not oily; had a nice balance between pickle and breading; and tasted great.

And they make the pickles themselves. During the pickling, they use both dill weed and dill seed. These are brined pickles, too—not lactofermented. He gave fermentation a try but it was a bit tricky, as natural fermentation can be unpredictable sometimes. Plus, frying the pickles would probably kill any good bacteria and mute the flavor.

They serve the fried pickles with a burger sauce: ketchup, mustard, mayo, seasoned with spices, and they add a little bit of the pickling liquid, too. And their pickles aren’t just used for frying, but they also put them on the burger and hot dog, too.

Hot Dog

Andrey pointed out that putting pickles on their hot dog has been influenced by the Danish-style hot dog. The Danish version involves the frank, a remoulade, fried onions, and pickle. But as Andrey says, “Americans are very opinionated about mayo on their dogs.” So the Burger Ritual version does not include it, and adds mustard and ketchup.

I went on to wax poetic about the completo, which is a Chilean-style hot dog. It involves chopped tomato, avocado puree, and mayo, and topped with pebre if you like. I used to eat them in my old neighborhood and I will admit that I thought mayo on a hot dog was sus. How wrong I was. Give it a try if you run across it.

Andrey and I connected over a place we both went to in Jackson Heights, Queens years ago called Lhasa Fast Food. It was a cell phone store that had an excellent Tibetan restaurant in the back. I was sorry to have to tell him that it burned down in 2021.

More on the Drinks Program

They mentioned their drink program as being one of those things that set them apart from their peers. They have a full on-premises license, which gives them a lot of flexibility as to what they can offer. “So we’ve been working on doing batch cocktails and then also an equal amount of mocktails,” said Mike. And they are served in 16oz pint glasses, so it’s substantial, comparatively speaking. Cocktails are $12 to $14 and mocktails are $8.

They’ve really enjoyed creating spritzes this summer, and they will be changing things up seasonally. Of course, we are in fall at the writing of this article, so pumpkin and apple are popular flavors in drinks around town. Citrus season is in the winter, too. So there are plenty of flavor combination opportunities to make tasty drinks reflective of the time of year they are in at any time.

Mike added, “I think once we’re rolling out specials regularly, we’ll probably do pairings and things in small batches, when we really release a special.” Also look for collabs with other carts in the pod. As for food, they’d like to add breakfast to the menu. And host some events.

A recent press release said this: “We want to serve food that’s straightforward, delicious, and executed with obsessive attention to detail,” says the team. “It’s more than just a cart — it’s a ritual.” Sounds about right.

It was great to hang out and spend time at Cartopia talking with Mike and Andrey. The pod is looking great and the food and drink at Burger Ritual are top notch. Stop on by when you can.

Burger Ritual [opened September 14, 2025]
1207 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Portland
Burger Ritual website | Instagram