One recent Wednesday night, Rose City Food Park was awash in a kaleidoscope of colors, as neon lights refracted through the raindrops. It felt like walking through a scene in Blade Runner, albeit with a very Portland spin. RCFP is designed a little bit like a campground, with multiple picnic tables and awnings to protect visitors from the elements. There are about 14 carts in all, situated in a J-shape around one singular building: Adda Beer & Taproom. 

Adda really feels like the heart of the pod, with its seating options, garage doors that open in more pleasant weather, and a biweekly rotation of stand-up comedy routines. On this night, the bar was lit with warm pink lights and pouring eight local brews. Chris McLaughlin, bar manager at Adda and property manager of RCFP, gave me a brief history of the pod—it was founded in 2012, when the concept that’s become a Portland signature was still relatively new. Since then, it has maintained a steady position within our food cart scene, and has become something of a neighborhood staple. Indeed, if you go on DoorDash or other food delivery apps, you’ll see many of RCFP’s carts listed as beloved NE picks. 

Why, then, do we not talk about RCFP as much as we talk about other pods in the city?  The internet doesn’t offer much information about the pod itself, save for some outdated or broken links. Meanwhile, places like Hawthorne Asylum, which didn’t open until 2019, has a devout following among visitors as well as locals. 

It might come down to advertising and aesthetics. Willamette Week writer Pete Cottell once described the Asylum as “what might happen if Tim Burton were commissioned to design a Portland-themed section of Disneyland." By contrast, RCFP is much more humble. It doesn’t feel ripped straight out of an episode of Portlandia. It feels like what it is: a place you’ve walked by a few times, but when you finally decide to give it a try, you wonder what took so long. 

The lack of press isn’t due to the food. Rose City Food Park includes popular spots like Rocket Breakfast, Chochu Local, and Indian- and Tibetan-focused Momo House. Cart hours fluctuate. I particularly enjoy family-owned Shawarma Express, where portions are generous, warm, and immensely flavorful. 

Simply Thai, with its bowls of massaman curry on a warm bed of steaming rice, is one of the pod’s more popular carts, but also one of the more unassuming. It’s easy to miss when you walk in, since it lacks some of the flashier decorations and lighting other carts have. The jovial woman working at Vivi’s Yummy Rolls might crack jokes with customers as she serves up bánh mì with the perfect ratio of bread to fillings. 

RCFP may not have buzz on its side, but it can deliver a reliably good time in crappy weather or otherwise. I can only imagine grabbing a beer at Adda on a hot summer night and chowing down on another bánh mì, while watching a local stand-up comedian work the crowd. Maybe under the radar isn’t such a bad thing.