Epilogue Kitchen and Cocktails

Salem, Oregon’s Ambitious Epilogue Kitchen Will Relocate to a ‘Sustainable Community’ | Eater Portland

"Led by two-time James Beard Best Chef Northwest semifinalist Jonathan Jones, along with co-owner and wife Maura Ryan, the downtown restaurant will relocate at the end of the year to Carpenter’s Hall in the Pringle Creek Community — a development that has billed itself as “Oregon’s greenest community.” The Pringle Creek site, on land that until 2000 was the Fairview Training Center with a deeply problematic history, now comprises LEED-certified private homes, a shared community center and nonprofit Sustainable Living Center (SLC), walking and biking trails, an urban farm, a community garden, and orchards; Jones describes it as, “It is a little Pleasantville-esque.” Carpenter’s Hall is one of two historic buildings on the site that were modernized and sold to individual entrepreneurs; the restaurant will occupy the space in the evenings while Prismatic Coffee (Evan Delgado and Ariel Ellis) will operate in the mornings, and Prismatic is already popping up on-site from a food truck. Jones will not take a traditional lease but will enter an ambitious cost-sharing arrangement with Prismatic, which owns the building. Jones frames the landlord–tenant dynamic bluntly: “The only true power is ownership of space and as long as you’re a tenant you can’t really build from that,” and he explains his search for collaborators: “I’ve been searching, for years, for someone interested in a cost-share situation. It’s a model that requires a lack of greed, and a glut of empathy and compassion.” He describes the partnership ethos simply: “Trust and hope are guiding principles of what I do,” adding that he believes in the “we’re in this together” spirit he feels in their collaboration. After Jones pitched them following a pop-up, Ellis says, “his timing couldn’t have been better,” and Delgado explains their need for a food solution: “We had been wrestling with what we’re going to do for food. We didn’t want to just have croissants and bagels.” Ellis and Delgado see practical upside in shared expenses — liquor license, marketing, staff training — and Ellis adds, “I loved what we were doing before, but this sort of changes the game.” The move will shrink the dining room from 65 seats to 35 and transform the operation into a more minimalist, hoodless, electric-only kitchen: “We’re going hoodless with electric cooking only,” Jones says. The tasting-focused menu will narrow and intensify: “The menu will focus on three- and six-course tastings that change twice a month,” a format likened to models such as Naomi Pomeroy’s Beast and Ashland’s MÄS. The restaurant’s autobiographical menu — dishes inspired by Black culture around the Mason-Dixon Line and Philadelphia (and, to a smaller extent, the Midwest) — will be pared down but will retain signature items like blue crab cakes with Old Bay remoulade, a garlicky meatball hoagie, pimento cheese with bread and butter pickles, and several crowd-favorite salads; the beloved pepperoncini-stuffed cheesesteak will come off the regular menu but may reappear as a warm-weather special from an outdoor station. Jones, who was an early supporter of masking and vaccine mandates and is a prominent voice for social justice and racial equity in the Willamette Valley, has used the restaurant to display Black Lives Matter signage, house a lending Library of Black Excellence, and host a memorial to George Floyd and other BIPOC killed in interactions with law enforcement — measures that he says “has kept the inside a safer space because it prevents people from coming in.” That outspokenness, however, has had consequences: since opening in 2019 the downtown location has been targeted by racist vandalism, verbal harassment, threats, and an attempted break-in. Looking ahead, Jones frames the move as both escape and opportunity: “What I want to do is feed people and give them a space to be happy and to celebrate being alive in this difficult world,” and “We’ve been in survival mode. I’m really excited about the possibility of a future where we can thrive.”" - Emily Teel