Headwaters Cafe – The Empress

So it’s true! The move has happened, and it couldn’t have come at a better time! Right in the middle of Portland’s Bike Commuter Challenge, Jason at The Empress Diner is geared (couldn’t help it!) up to serve breakfast to the bike masses. He’s serving great coffee and breakfast wraps, and is vegetarian friendly!
Never a better reason to get that bike out and earn your buns of steel, eh? There’s many reasons to head out to the new cart location, including bike racks and a maintenance station! Lots of seating and standing around room, too!
«Ride bikes and listen to Slayer! »

After a long and hard day DJ’ing at the Portland Skate EXPO @ the Portland Convention Center, we had a mission to find VooDoo donuts.
After completing that mission, we were on our way around downtown Portland way of 3^rd st looking for Ivan Ives. We had nowhere to go. We were in the middle of a city i hadnt familiarized myself with all that well and had so many options to explore, so my friend Twyce sat on this counter attached to an old 1968 Airstream Trailer, when a guy walks up to us and says, «Mind if i ask you to step off of the table, im about to open up.» so we all turn around and see that this place is a Restaurant disguised as a Trailer. hahahaha
The menu was a site for hungry sore eyes and it read:
The Fonz: Braised pork on a baguette with hoisin sauce and Asian slaw
Ralph the Mouth: Vegetarian Eggplant Parmesan on baguette w/​sweet basil ragout and provelone cheese
Brown Bag Meatloaf sandwich with caramelized onions, lettuce and condiments
My lucky day!!!
For Unilocal sake i order all that isnt vegetarian. I ask for 2 cokes, and he says, «Sorry bro, i only have one left, mind if i give you something else?» «Surre!!!»
I take it to go, hop into a cab, and head to the Hotel. When i get there, i open the bag and it has both my meatloaf sandwich and the pork sandwich, also he packed in 4 bags of chips a coke, and 3 extra drinks. i thought to myself… whoooooa, this dude hooked me up NAAAASTY!!!
The food was awesome, and the hook up was almost as great!!!
Every bite was filled with a great unique taste, and made me glad that i was able to experience it.
and all this from a Trailer!!! WOW

The Empress sought me out today. In fact, I tried to stay as far away from the cart (actually it’s a Streamline trailer) as possible while also being able to peek at their menu, just because I wasn’t in the mood to deal with any pressure the cook might put on me when spotted. I wasn’t sneaky enough and the guy in the window lured me in with an umbrella (it was raining and I was caught unprepared) and genuine niceness.
In a hurry, I just asked what he recommended, which was the «The Fonz»: braised pork on baguette with hoisin marinade and Asian slaw. There were several other sandwiches listed, including a vegetarian option.
When I got the sandwich in my hand, I felt a hard baguette, which made me think of many other sandwiches I had that I thought would break my teeth when I bit in to them. Not in this case, it was perfectly flaky and easy to eat. It was a damn good sandwich!
So I went from «what did I get myself into?» to «this is exactly what I needed!» In fact, the guy gave me the sandwich for $ 1 less because he felt bad for luring me in. He was a lot of fun to joke around with. When I got back to the office I looked them up online — check out Carbon Neutral Catering page.
I’m not sure how long this place will be there. They seem to move around, according to their page. Hopefully, they’ll stick around.
Cute setup — very spacious and clean. I’m glad I supported them today!