Face Plant

The Best Vegan and Veggie Burgers in Portland, Oregon | Eater Portland

"The newest addition to Portland’s vegan burger scene enters energetically with a simple menu by big-name chef Molly Baz and a mission to appeal to folks who love fast food burgers. The limited menu and space offer McDonalds meets In-N-Out vibes with prices that compete, even without the meat and dairy subsidies. The signature cheeseburger, “the fancy,” is the most gussied-up option and comes with a slice of “American,” lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, and special sauce. Hot tip: You can ask for a “Fenway” which is the double fancy plus mustard. It’s not quite as wild as animal style but a surprisingly fun addition nevertheless." - Anastasia Sloan

Face Plant: Portland Vegan Fast-Food Restaurant in a Former McDonald’s Out to Change the World | Eater Portland

"A newly opened Portland flagship drive-thru that is explicitly plant-based and was four years in the making, built around three goals: serving enjoyable, affordable food; providing stellar customer service; and supplanting Ronald McDonald. Led by CEO Matt Plitch and culinary head/shareholder Molly Baz (who has 809,000 Instagram followers but hasn’t publicly announced her participation yet), the team spent years testing recipes and refined details down to a proprietary pea-milk blend for a vanilla shake after Baz found chocolate, strawberry, and coffee shakes worked with oat milk but that “vanilla is such a subtle, clean flavor and other flavors shine through.” The menu centers on fast-food classics reinvented: burgers offered as “red & yellow” (think American cheese, pickles, ketchup) or “fancy” (lettuce, tomato, onion, special sauce), available as doubles or combos, plus a 10-piece nugget served with a mustard-y barbecue sauce reminiscent of Carolina gold. Fries are deliberately a bit larger than McDonald’s—Baz realized she liked them “a bit girthier” to achieve the perfect ratio of “crispy exterior to mashed potato, fluffy interior,” and their seasoning blend includes a subtle bit of vinegar; the reviewer noted they stayed crisp in the rain and had a uniquely satisfying flavor. Sodas are cold and bubbly (Barq’s Root Beer is available and caffeinated), and handspun shakes (priced at $4.99) plus hot and iced coffee are coming soon. The reviewer’s party of four ordered one of each menu item (including fries and a soda combo and a split 10-piece nugget) and spent $44.50 total—less than $12 each—finding the patties to have the right hint of char, sauces that are drippy, veggies crisp, and buns toasty soft; Baz and Plitch aim to hit the “combo of umami, salt, fat, and tang that makes food craveable.” The operation emphasizes a nostalgic, family-friendly fast-food vibe (shiny classic interior, stocked coloring station, friendly staff, kids drenched fries in ketchup) and a drive-thru experience with staff coming to windows à la In-N-Out; many regulars are local workers from nearby Swann Island industrial and distribution hubs (about one-third of vehicles are trucks). The founders stress service and community—Plitch notes, “This concept doesn’t work if people who love fast food don’t love it,” and that “Fast food is the greatest way to take care of people,” adding an ambition to scale with, “If you disrupt over a gigaton of carbon, you change the arc of history.” Early operations have been busy since day one despite a somewhat subdued debut two weeks earlier; the team has handled opening hiccups (machine malfunctions, incorrect deliveries) by comping meals, offering vouchers or extras, and even celebrated a repeat customer by comping his 10th visit. Small, charming details—like a cat on a dashboard and a dog coming through wearing goggles—underscore the neighborhood feel, and while the reviewer (a vegan) notes they’re not the target audience, Baz says the goal “is to capture people who eat beef on the regular.”" - Anastasia Sloan

At Portland’s New Vegan Burger Drive-Thru Face Plant, Fast-Food Classics Get the Molly Baz Treatment | Eater Portland

"An all-vegan drive-thru will debut in a former McDonald’s location in Portland in January 2025, occupying 3110 N. Going Street, and will serve familiar classics like cheeseburgers, fries, nuggets, and shakes developed by cookbook author and mayo influencer Molly Baz, who is the head of culinary development. The project has been in the works since 2021 after founder Matt Plitch went vegan and found his quick, convenient options limited; as he recalls, “I’ll never forget going through the drive-thru and ordering my number six, no dairy, and feeling a bit like being nourished by a company that didn’t really resonate with me in terms of what [I’m] all about.” Baz — who is not vegan but took on the challenge of reimagining vegan hamburgers — says, “I had never been someone who had taken pleasure in eating a plant-based burger before,” she says, “I feel like there has been just so much innovation in plant-based foods, but somewhere along the way, flavor got a little overlooked and lost.” She adds, “It’s amazing that companies like Impossible have innovated and come as far as they have,” she says. “We have fake meat that bleeds, and that’s incredible, but if it doesn’t taste as good as [meat], then we’re never going to change the eating behaviors and patterns of meat eaters in America, myself included.” Using an Impossible Foods patty as the base, Baz experimented for three years on seasoning mixes and techniques, noting, “I’m kind of like the perfect target for it, because I try not to eat anything that’s not delicious,” she says. “Frankly, I avoid things that aren’t delicious.” The team landed on a proprietary spice blend for both the burger and chicken-less nuggets intended to “create a mouth-watering kind of sensation of juiciness, smokiness, brightness, and fattiness,” Baz says. “All those things that you associate with eating a beef burger.” The burgers will resemble a McDonald’s-style sandwich — the patty cooked somewhere between a smash and a char-grill — with a classic topped with ketchup, mustard, pickles, and cheese and a deluxe adding tomatoes and a vegan mayo–based burger sauce; nuggets will use Impossible as the base and come with a developed dipping sauce, with Baz testing success by asking, “For me, the litmus test is, do I want another bite? Am I just dying for another bite? Because if not, then we failed at the mission.” Plitch envisions the drive-thru model as a direct alternative for typical fast-food customers, keeping interactions personal by having staff come out to cars In‑N‑Out style rather than relying on intercoms, and pricing items competitively—burgers between $5 and $7 and combos around $10–$11—aiming to be within 50 cents to a dollar of meat-based competitors. Beyond convenience and price, Plitch frames the concept as a way to reduce carbon emissions and shift eating habits: “We are not trying to build the best vegan fast-food chain, or fast-food chain for vegans or vegetarians or people who are plant curious,” he says. “The only way we achieve the mission is by building a better fast-food experience and menu than the meat-based competition.” Both founders express hope for broader impact: “If I can successfully create something that people find really delicious, then I have participated in what could be a massive change … changing habits around the world in terms meat consumption,” Baz says, and Plitch adds, “Nothing matters more than finally having this gift and incredible honor of serving people delicious food.”" - Rebecca Roland

New in 2025, this indie drive-thru serves fully vegan burgers, nuggets, fries, and shakes, drawing early buzz from Axios Portland and veg-focused groups. Fast-food nostalgia, plant-based execution, Portland attitude.