| Kee's Loaded Kitchen | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Restaurant information | |
| Owner(s) | Kiauna "Kee" Nelson |
| Chef | Kiauna "Kee" Nelson |
| Food type | Soul food |
| City | Portland |
| State | Oregon |
| Country | United States |
| Coordinates | 45°33′34″N122°39′41″W / 45.5595°N 122.6613°W |
Kee's Loaded Kitchen (stylized as Kee's #Loaded Kitchen) is a soul food restaurant in Portland, Oregon. [1] [2]
Kee's is a Black-owned, soul food restaurant on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in northeast Portland's King neighborhood. The menu includes smoked brisket, fried catfish, [3] chicken wings, loaded baked potatoes, macaroni and cheese, spaghetti, and desserts. [4] [5]
Kiauna "Kee" Nelson is the restaurant's owner and chef. [4]
In 2020, Kee's and Nelson appeared in a music video by Aminé. [6] In June, during the George Floyd protests, donations from community members and Don't Shoot Portland allowed Kee's to provide free food to Black Portlanders. [5] For Thanksgiving, Kee's offered turkey, smoked brisket, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, cornbread stuffing, collard greens, and sweet potato casserole. Desserts included banana pudding, coconut layer cake, and sweet potato pie. [7]
The restaurant was featured on the Netflix series Street Food in 2022. [8]
In 2018, Kee's was named Cart of the Year by Willamette Week . [9] Kee's was included in multiple Eater Portland lists in 2021. Nick Woo and Nick Townsend included the restaurant in "14 Real-Deal Fried Chicken Spots in Portland", writing: "When Kiauna Nelson of the MLK food cart Kee's Loaded Kitchen starts frying chicken for her loaded plates, it's a run-don't-walk situation. Nelson's chicken gets a heavy, spice-laden rub before it hits the fryer, and then gets hit with the 'magic dust,' a sweet-spicy powder almost reminiscent of barbecue potato chips. There's nothing in town like it. Now, Kee's can get some serious lines, so the real move is to get to the cart before it opens for a takeout order." [10] Additionally, Woo and Brooke Jackson-Glidden also included Kee's in "15 Outstanding Portland Food Carts", [11] and Ron Scott included the food cart in "9 Spots for Serious Soul Food in Portland and Beyond". [12] The website's Ron Scott and Nathan Williams included the restaurant in a 2022 list of "13 Spots for Serious Soul Food in Portland and Beyond". [13]
Cartopia is a food cart pod located on the corner of SE 12th Avenue and Hawthorne Boulevard in Southeast Portland, Oregon.
Collective Oregon Eateries (CORE) is a food cart pod in Portland, Oregon, United States.
Rose VL Deli is a Vietnamese restaurant in Portland, Oregon.
Everybody Eats PDX was a soul food restaurant in Portland, Oregon. The business closed in 2022.
Holy Trinity Barbecue was a barbecue restaurant in Portland, Oregon. Kyle Rensmeyer established the business as a food cart in southeast Portland's neighborhood Creston-Kenilworth in 2019. Holy Trinity and its barbecue garnered a positive reception; The Oregonian deemed Holy Trinity one of the city's best new food carts and Portland Business Journal said its barbecue was "hailed as among the best" in the United States. The restaurant closed in October 2022 and Rensmeyer has since held pop-ups.
Jojo is a restaurant in Portland, Oregon. Established by Justin Hintze in 2018, the business operates in southeast Portland's Creston-Kenilworth neighborhood and northwest Portland's Pearl District.
Chicken and Guns is a restaurant with two locations in the U.S. state of Oregon. The restaurant operates a food cart in Portland, and the brick and mortar Smokehouse Chicken and Guns opened in Gales Creek in 2023.
Fried Egg I'm in Love is a restaurant with multiple locations in Portland, Oregon.
Dirty Lettuce is a Black-owned vegan restaurant serving Southern, Cajun, and Creole cuisine in Portland, Oregon. Alkebulan Moroski began operating as a food cart in 2020 and opened a brick and mortar restaurant in 2021.
Baes Fried Chicken, or Baes Chicken, is a fried chicken restaurant with three locations in Portland, Oregon.
Erica's Soul Food is a restaurant in Portland, Oregon.
Viking Soul Food is a Scandinavian restaurant in Portland, Oregon.
Yonder was a Southern restaurant in Portland, Oregon. Chef Maya Lovelace opened Yonder in northeast Portland's Cully neighborhood in 2019. The business was named one of the city's ten best new restaurants of 2019 by The Oregonian and was featured on an episode of the Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives in 2020. Yonder closed on June 26, 2022, when Lovelace converted the space into Hissyfit.
Bing Mi is a Chinese restaurant in Portland, Oregon. The original food cart specialized in the Chinese street food jianbing. The brick and mortar Bing Mi Dumpling and Noodle Bar opened in 2022 and focuses on Northern Chinese noodles and dumplings. The food cart closed in December 2023.
Toki is a Korean restaurant in Portland, Oregon.
PaaDee is a Thai restaurant in Portland, Oregon.
Matta is a Vietnamese restaurant in Portland, Oregon.
Sunshine Noodles was a Cambodian American restaurant in Portland, Oregon, United States, that operated from 2019 to 2022.
Tierra del Sol is a Oaxacan restaurant with two locations in Portland, Oregon. Chef-owner Amalia Sierra began operating the business from a food cart at Portland Mercado in 2015. A second location opened in the Montavilla neighborhood in 2020.
Batterfish was a fish and chip shop in Portland, Oregon. Previously, the business operated in Encino, Los Angeles, as a food truck in Santa Monica, California, and as a food cart in Happy Valley, Oregon. Batterfish specialized in fish and chips and was featured on the Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. The restaurant closed by 2023.
| Buildings | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Business |
| ||
| Geography | |||
| Public art | |||
| Related | |||
