This week, Portland’s dwindling Jewish deli scene was dealt another blow as the mom-and-pop operation Sweet Lorraine’s closed permanently on Sunday, May 26. Owners Aaron Tomasko and Rachel Brashear announced the closure in an Instagram post. They started Sweet Lorraine’s as a food cart in 2021 — selling latkes, kugel, rugelach, and black-and-white cookies — but faced numerous hurdles associated with operating a food business in Portland’s post-COVID dining landscape.
“The cost of doing business has ballooned so fast in the past three years, we can now never make enough to cover the minimum rent at a restaurant location in Portland selling latkes and knishes,” Tomasko and Brashear write.
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