Four PSU Foodies Shaping the Portland Scene

Four Portland State alumni shaping the city's dining and drinking culture have something in common when it comes to running a business: their commitment to collaborating with farmers and producers, other entrepreneurs and the communities that surround them.

Fatou Ouattara (B.A. Business Administration, '13) brings West African cooking to Portland with Akadi PDX, a restaurant that she describes as a home for people far from their own. Jill Kuehler (M. Ed., '06), founder of Freeland Spirits, runs a distillery highlighting the dazzling and varied bounty of Oregon agriculture. Ae Sangasy (B.S. Business Administration, '00), founder of Khao Niew, has introduced Portlanders to Lao food while building a gathering place for her neighborhood. And Katie Poppe (B.S. Psychology, '04) showcases local, and sometimes surprising, flavor and community partnerships at Blue Star Donuts.

Entrepreneurship, for these women, is not simply about running a business. It is also a way to create and share the parts of Portland they want to see. And PSU has helped gather all the necessary ingredients to make that happen for each of them.

Letting Their Knowledge Serve the City

Each entrepreneur spent their time at PSU discovering relationships with the people and city of Portland. Alongside an education, those skills, relationships and professional connections became a crucial part of what each founder was able to go on to build. In this way, Kuehler, Ouattara, Poppe and Sangasy truly embody Portland State's motto, "Let Knowledge Serve The City."

Besides the community that championed her cooking from the start, Ouattara's education in marketing and finance gave her knowledge she continues to use to promote and grow Akadi.

PSU shaped the way Poppe, who also took classes in PSU's MBA program, thinks about the people on the other side of a business. Her education in psychology and neuroscience gave her a framework for understanding human behavior, which she has applied to the customer experience across several successful businesses.

PSU became a bridge between Kuehler's interests and a career. Her graduate work in food, culture and learning led to her time at Zenger Farm, and on to Freeland Spirits and what she sees as the endless possibilities of Portland's food and agriculture communities.

Sangasy's degree not only gave her the customer experience, market research and analytical skills to open Khao Niew, but was the launchpad for another degree: an MBA at Marylhurst University. PSU has also given Sangasy a wide network of friends and supporters.

"PSU is so supportive of their alumni business owners," Sangasy says. "They publicize us through the alumni website and newsletters, they promoted us during COVID shutdowns, they offered us a spot at their foodcart pod, and they still hire us to cater events."

Eating Local, Building Community

For each of the four founders, connection begins with community, literally "serving the city." And local means more than simply doing business in Portland. It means letting the people, ingredients and producers of the Pacific Northwest become part of what they create, while bringing their own histories and passions into the city in return.

At Akadi, Ouattara makes dishes like suya wings, goat stew and corn fritters using recipes passed down from her mother, grandmother and aunties. And while she travels home to Cote D'Ivoire frequently to see family and bring spices back to Portland, she has discovered the Pacific Northwest is also full of ingredients that work beautifully with her cooking.

Ouattara sources goat meat, fish and vegetables from Oregon farms. When specific ingredients are difficult to find or aren't traditionally grown here, she works directly with local farmers, like Happiness Family Farm on Sauvie Island - run by another PSU alum, executive director Japhety Ngabireyimana - who grows garden eggs, also known as African white eggplants, for the restaurant. The result isn't just critically and community-lauded West African food made in Oregon, but West African cooking shaped, in part, by the place where Ouattara now lives.

At Freeland Spirits, the relationship between ingredients and place is even more literal. After years traveling and studying small-scale agriculture, Kuehler graduated from the PSU College of Education's master's program with a focus on food, culture and learning. Studying community gardens and the return of scratch cooking in elementary schools led to her spending seven years at Zenger Farm including serving as director.

These years of study and work gave Kuehler connections all across the state. After a conversation with Eastern Oregon rancher and friend Cory Carman about bringing more terroir - an idea usually reserved for wines - into spirits, Kuehler launched Freeland Spirits. Along with grain grown on Carman's own ranch and nearby Camas Country Mill, Freeland uses local produce to flavor their spirits.

"A lot of the botanicals for our gin come from Sauvie Island, we forage in the woods for chanterelle mushrooms, nettles and douglas fir tips to make our Forest Gin, and we collect fallen blooms from the Portland Japanese Garden for our Cherry Blossom liqueur. It's such a place-based business," Kuehler says. "You can't separate Freeland from Portland."

At Khao Niew, Sangasy's commitment to sourcing ingredients from local makers like Bui Natural Tofu lives alongside another kind of community effort: making Lao food more visible in Portland. Sangasy named the restaurant Khao Niew, which means "sticky rice," (a staple of Lao cuisine) and markets her food explicitly as Lao. The decision means bringing in the local Lao community, as well as inviting Portlanders unfamiliar with the flavors to explore a new cuisine.

"Most people don't even know where Laos is," Sangasy says. "But Portland is such a foodie city. So I took a risk and banked on people being willing to try it."

Today Khao Niew is a favorite family-friendly spot for Nam Khao (crispy rice salad), Khao Piek Sen (chicken soup with hand-stretched rice noodles), and savory Papaya Salad in the Cully neighborhood. And Sangasy's customers have expanded beyond the Lao community. Many people who don't share her cultural background have become some of the restaurant's most enthusiastic supporters.

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats

Kuehler describes her business philosophy as a "rising tide lifts all boats."

"There's a big, inspiring culture of supporting local business here," she says. "It's not one driven by competition as much as a feeling of, 'We're all in this together.'"

In fact, this flavor of generosity helped Freeland launch their first product. During their first year, the fledgling company experienced delays getting their operations up and running. Nearby Aria Gin offered Kuehler their own space and equipment to make the first few batches of Freeland gin, in the spirit of community.

Poppe approaches the same idea through pastry and has always liked finding new partners. "Collaborations highlight the amazing local producers and community members we have in the Pacific Northwest and can give a business a longer lifespan," she says.

Blue Star Donuts, has worked with local producers including Oregon Growers, who makes Pacific Northwest jams and jellies, and Durant Olive Mill, who supplies the donut company with their own award-winning olive oil.

Blue Star has also collaborated on flavors and products with community members like professional softballer Korbe Otis, outfielder for the Portland Cascade. Poppe sees these collaborations as a way to highlight both the region's producers and the people in Blue Star's community.

This emphasis on relationships extends beyond the businesses and products themselves. Khao Niew turned a once dilapidated property into a neighborhood gathering place. Later, when the restaurant was graffitied, Sangasy took the opportunity to seek out a grant and hire local artists to paint a Lao-inspired mural over the defacement. And when a houseless neighbor living nearby lost his belongings and temporary home in a fire, Sangasy organized a fundraiser that raised enough money to rebuild his home.

"We turned the bad things that happen to us into something better, rebuilding and rebuilding. Investing back into the building and business is really investing back into the community," she says.

Cully has returned the love. When Khao Niew's kitchen caught fire in 2020, neighbors jumped into action and raised the funds to help the restaurant repair the damage. And the neighbor whose home burnt down now takes pride in watching over the building, keeping the property clean and watering the plants for Sangasy.

"It's an amazing community out there," Sangasy says. "Look at all these people who might not even know us. But look at the support they're willing to give us to have us here in the community."

Ouattara describes Akadi just as personally. The first idea of the restaurant started in the PSU dorms when Ouattara didn't know anyone in Portland. Her dorm room cooking attracted others, many of them homesick international students, and built a community from scratch. What began as bonding over food eventually led to catering jobs, friendships, a restaurant and industry-wide accolades. But Ouattara always focuses on the community aspect of Akadi PDX.

"I always say if there's any student here who is from Africa who feels homesick, Akadi is a home," she says. "You can always come there. You will meet a lot of people from different countries at Akadi and maybe make some new friends or find a job."

A Place at the Table

Rather than sharing flavors or a single style, these four businesses share an ethos, and together, form a story about place. Farmers and producers become partners, customers become regulars and advocates, and fellow entrepreneurs become collaborators.

And the university that brought them to Portland remains at the heart of the story. PSU didn't determine what these business owners would build, but gave them the tools, connections and sense of possibility to build businesses that became part of Portland themselves.