Modern Jewish Deli Beetroot Will Close Permanently - Eater Portland

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Before Beetroot — the sunny deli, market and bakery on NW Glisan — officially opened in August 2019, buzz was already building. Owner Sonya Sanford had an image of running a modern Jewish deli, with house-smoked whitefish, pickles, and dishes from Slavic countries and areas of Western Asia. Vegetables from Oregon farms would end up roasted in za’atar for cold deli salads, bowls of the Russian meatball-and-tomato dish tefteli would roll out of the kitchen next to bowls of matzo ball soup, and brownies would come swirled with tahini. And to the left of the counter, she’d stock a small market full of her favorite things: Dr. Brown’s celery soda, Soom tahini, Hebel & Co. strawberry-poppyseed halva.

Now, just a year past its opening date, Beetroot has announced its imminent closure. “With a heavy heart, we are closing Beetroot and will finish out this last week by working on our Rosh Hashanah orders for Friday, and donating meals to folks impacted by these fires,” an Instagram post reads. “We wish we could be open to the public for one last week, but it is both unsafe and doesn’t feel right to operate normally during this time.”

Beetroot has had a tough first year. It slowly opened through the fall of 2019, gradually introducing new dishes and filling out its market side of the space. Sanford couldn’t get the smoking license she wanted early on, which meant she had to source dishes she had planned to make in-house. Finally, when it had worked out the kinks, a pandemic hit; the restaurant was one of the first to close to dine-in customers. “We were just getting our footing in March,” Sanford says. “Then the pandemic happened, there are just not a ton of solutions right now.”

From there, things just got worse. The restaurant served takeout breakfasts, baked babkas, prepped pre-ordered holiday meals. The city grappled with challenge after challenge. And when the last dregs of summer disappeared under a fog of hazardous smoke, Sanford decided to just call it, and focus on the community at large. “No matter what I could do right now, people are struggling. People aren’t eating out very much,” she says. “I know some places are thriving, and I’m so happy for that, but for most restaurants, there just isn’t a strong enough market.”

Sanford has reached out to organizations like Feed the Mass to donate the last of her inventory, and from there, she’s not exactly sure what’s next. Wildflower Baking, the pop-up bakery based at Beetroot, is transitioning into an virtual baking school with recipes and, down the line, full-blown classes. At this point, Sanford is holding onto the space for a few more months; she plans to make a lot of soup for friends throughout the winter. “I’m planning on taking some months to regroup. My background is personal cheffing and baking, so I may focus on that while I figure out my next steps are,” Sanford says. “I love feeding people, and I don’t plan to stop doing any of that.”

• Beetroot [Official]
• Beetroot [Instagram]
• Beetroot, the Modern Jewish Deli Coming to Northwest Portland, Opens August 21 [EPDX]
• Northwest Portland’s Beetroot Will Stop Serving Dine-In Customers Amid Novel Coronavirus Outbreak [EPDX]

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