Fire forces Portland Mercado to shut down until further notice

A fire ripped through the Portland Mercado food court early Wednesday morning. Vendors there are currently closed so that the damage can be fully assessed. The location has been a hub for Latino communities and featured food from countries including Mexico and Columbia. Hacienda Community Development Corporation owns the space. Ernesto Fonseca is the CEO of the organization. He joins us with details of the fire and what this means for the future of the Mercado.

This transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. A fire ripped through the Market Hall of the Portland Mercado early Wednesday morning. The Southeast Portland site has been a hub for Latino business owners and communities since it was founded in 2015 by the Hacienda Community Development Corporation. All of the associated businesses, both in the Market Hall and the nearby food cart pod, are closed right now. Ernesto Fonseca is the CEO of Hacienda CDC. He joins us now to talk about the fire and the future of the Mercado. Welcome to the show.

Ernesto Fonseca: Thank you, Dave.

Miller: For people who aren’t familiar with the Portland Mercado, can you just describe it?

Fonseca: Absolutely. The Portland Mercado came to life as a solution for small business owners primarily women making tamales. Back in 2006, they approached the Hacienda to see if we could have a place for them to do their business. Little by little that idea grew into more and more and these women organized themselves and eventually, to keep the story short, in 2015 we opened the Portland Mercado as a solution for food entrepreneurs in the Latino community.

Miller: A solution? What exactly was the problem that the women who were selling tamales or other would-be entrepreneurs were encountering?

Fonseca: There wasn’t necessarily a problem to state, there was just a simple lack of opportunity for people to grow. One of the biggest issues that we find within many Communities of Color, but in particular, our community, which is pretty large in the United States, is that lack of opportunity to find ways to do business in an organized and structured way. So the Portland Mercado became a venue to do business, but also came with a package of services called empresarios, which is basically technical assistance to make sure that businesses have the tools to be informed and succeed.

Miller: Because it’s not enough to have a good product, you need to have all the structure and be able to navigate the county or state regulations and to have a business that works.

Fonseca: Exactly. I frequently say that housing is not enough and it can be said the same for businesses. Just because you have a brick and mortar place doesn’t mean that you’re going to succeed. You need to be organized and have the tools and make sure that you have the administrative knowledge for you to make this happen,

including social media, advertisements and many other things that we offer as a support to them.

Miller: Obviously, we’ll talk about the fire, but this is a chance for us to talk about what you were able to create. How much of those hopes became a reality?

Fonseca: I would say that about eight out of 10 businesses are able to not only succeed but expand their businesses beyond the Portland Mercado.

Miller: Wow. I think that’s an extraordinary percentage given just the way any new business’ chances are for survival. I think fewer than half of them survive.

Fonseca: That is right. Statistically speaking, out of the food business, you get 50% or more of that fail. The Portland Mercado and Hacienda CDC are really focused on providing not only affordable rents but also subsidies and the technical assistance and lending that is affordable for these businesses to grow and really succeed. At some point, obviously, we let them go because they are already doing much better than they were when we got them into our doors.

Miller: Let them go, meaning that they can then find their own new site to operate from. They’re no longer a part of the Mercado?

Fonseca: They are continuous. Some of them continue to be part of the Mercado. That means that they have a venue at the Portland Mercado and they have another or multiple venues outside the Portland Mercado. We are re-envisioning what that should look like in the future after this tragic incident. But yes, they grow up and that is the goal they have to grow out of the Portland Mercado at some point.

Miller: Can you give us a sense for the range of countries that business owners who operate at the Mercado come from? We’re not just talking about one or two countries, right?

Fonseca: No, no, no, no, no. Everybody thinks that we have only Mexican representation there. No, we have people from Colombia. We have people from Ecuador, from Honduras, from Puerto Rico, from Cuba, Argentina. So we have a wide range of venues [that] were affected. We welcome everyone that is bringing something like this to the Mercado.

Miller: So what can you tell us about what happened in the early morning hours

two days ago?

Fonseca: Yes. Unfortunately, around 5:30 in the morning or something like that, the Portland Fire Department called me to their 911 number. I was extremely sleepy, obviously at that time, and they asked me if I was the owner of the Portland Mercado, to which I said immediately yes. And then they said the Portland Mercado is on fire and you need to show up at the site right away.

I started driving to the Portland Mercado. It was a little after six or around that time and it didn’t look terrible when I saw it; however, when you see the pictures and you come into the Mercado itself, it was a very catastrophic event. What we know is that the fire started at the bar itself and then it spread into the main Food Hall and part of the roof. The second floor of the Portland Mercado with the heat and the water of the sprinklers got into a little bit too much evaporation and heat and the windows on the second floor exploded.

It is extremely damaged. We don’t know the cause of the fire just yet. It will not be good for me to speculate while the investigation is still ongoing and that’s all we know for now. We immediately got together to cover up the Portland Mercado to keep it safe and to keep people safe from that.

Miller: What is the potential timeline right now for when it will be up and running again?

Fonseca: That’s a great question, Dave. There are a few different estimates depending on how everything works out with the insurance on legal and design and permitting. But we are looking into a timeline of at least a year, if not more, for us to really bring back the Portland Mercado into what it used to be and much better.

Miller: A year for the brick and mortar side of the building and for the associated food carts, or is there a different timeline for the pod that’s sort of tied to it?

Fonseca: We’re working through some of those details right now. Our goal and our hope is that we can reactivate the food carts within the next few weeks. We don’t know whether that is going to be possible or allowed by both insurance as well as the city, but we’re working on it. None of the businesses, including the ones outside, have water or electricity right now. All they have is sewer at this time. So they were very, very affected entirely.

It is my goal, absolutely my goal, to try to reactivate the outside part of the pal and the plaza. So we are going to do everything that we can and we are hoping that we get the support of our government officials, which they have been extremely supportive right now, but we’re looking forward to reactivating that place.

Miller: What have you heard from the various business owners over the last couple of days?

Fonseca: Well, everybody is extremely devastated to say the least. If you look at some of those pictures, the bar is completely burned. Xōcotl, inside the bar, inside the Food Hall, is also completely out of business and damaged in terms of smoke and debris and water. The rest of the businesses outside the Portland Mercado food carts are obviously experiencing a lot of pain and trauma. Trauma because of the fire and pain because all their employees as well as their businesses are paralyzed at this very, very moment. That is not even mentioning the people that used to work at the kitchen, which were about 70-80 people, who used to cook and package and deliver food out of the kitchen.

So the impact financially is going to be very, very significant and the impact in terms of the actual timeline for the Portland Mercado, it’s going to be long. That timeline that I mentioned is just an estimate for now, but more work has to be done in the next several weeks for us to have a clear idea as to how this can work.

Miller: Where does the fundraising effort stand right now? There has been a lot of attention. This is a beloved institution even though it’s not that old. What have you seen in terms of the community response?

Fonseca: Oh my God, it has been overwhelming. It has been extremely overwhelming. So far, we have received about 1,000 contributions to Hacienda CDC for the Portland Mercado. I want to make clear to everyone that is listening to this, that every single penny that we’re collecting will be invested in each one of our food vendors at the Portland Mercado so we can stabilize them. We will be conducting a different kind of fundraising ourselves for us to rebuild, which will include a mix of monies from all kinds of places. But for now, we’re going to be doing this. Over 1,000 people! We’re so grateful and thankful for all that support.

Miller: Ernesto Fonseca, thank you very much for coming in.

Fonseca: Thank you so much, Dave.

Miller: Ernesto Fonseca is the CEO of Hacienda Community Development Corporation, Hacienda CDC. They are the creators of Portland Mercado.

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