Naomi Pomeroy’s business partner on the chef’s “shocking” death and plans for a bistro in Portland

Luke Dirks last saw Naomi Pomeroy late Friday night. The duo were wrapping up one of the first installments of their Garden Party, a dinner series that began in a secluded garden in Southeast Portland near the neighborhood bistro they planned to open in the fall.

“We closed this place together around 1:30 a.m.,” Dirks said. “We both wanted to try and take a weekend to be with our families and relax. We had talked loosely about what we were going to do over the weekend. We both planned to go out into nature. We hugged each other and said, ‘See you Monday.'”

Pomeroy, 49, died tragically Saturday when her inflatable boat struck a tree stump on the Willamette River near Corvallis, authorities said. Rescue crews had not recovered Pomeroy’s body as of Tuesday. Her husband, Kyle Linden Webster, survived the incident.

“I’m still in shock,” Dirks said. “It doesn’t feel real.”

Dirks first met Pomeroy at a kickoff party for the Feast Portland food festival in New York City, when he was the East Coast wholesale manager for Stumptown Coffee. He remembers her presence – full of light and energy.

Dirks returned to Portland in 2015, where he co-founded Submarine Hospitality (Ava Gene’s, Tusk). The two soon met at Prince Coffee on Northeast Fremont Avenue to talk about tipping and other sensitive restaurant topics.

When the pandemic hit, a text thread between Dirks, Pomeroy, Peter Cho and others led to a well-attended industry meeting at Fora, the event space behind Ava Gene’s. That early town hall meeting led directly to the formation of the Independent Restaurant Alliance of Oregon.

“(Naomi) became a point person not only for Portland, but for all of Portland through her work with the Independent Restaurant Coalition,” Dirks said.

After Pomeroy converted her restaurant, Beast, into the Ripe Cooperative, a restaurant-convenience store hybrid, Dirks would often stop by to grab ice cream with his kids. But it wasn’t until Pomeroy and her husband, Kyle Linden Webster, decided to abandon plans to open a restaurant at the Ace Hotel Kyoto that she and Dirks decided to work together.

That work really got going in the spring, when Dirks and Pomeroy toured the former Woodsman Tavern, a building owned by early submarine investor Arrow Cruz. Their plans were to open a 70-seat bistro at 4537 SE Division St., a place where reservations could be made but not necessarily required.

“We were excited to merge our two backgrounds,” Dirks said. “The world has never seen a drop-in, à la carte restaurant from Naomi Pomeroy, and we were excited to do this together.”

Given the delays, Pomeroy and Dirks decided to introduce themselves to the neighborhood with the Garden Party, a twice-weekly dinner series on a patio behind the original Stumptown Café with a $95 menu reminiscent of Beast’s early days.

Meanwhile, Pomeroy and former Beast sous chef Mika Paredes opened Cornet Custard, a small shop next door that offers the frozen custard Dirks had enjoyed at Ripe.

On Tuesday, a makeshift floral memorial stood at the entrance to Cornet Custard, which remained closed.

Over the past few months, Pomeroy and Dirks have been building a small restaurant team, including executive chef Matt Mayer (Ripe Cooperative, Heavenly Creatures) and wine director Michael Garofola (Beast, Cutter Cascadia Wine), and had planned to continue the Garden Party series through the fall.

According to Dirks, all important decisions about the future of the restaurant are made together with the team and Pomeroy’s family. But he doesn’t speak about the bistro in the past tense.

“Right now we’re just processing our grief,” Dirks said. “And there’s no plan. That’s an issue we’ll address when everyone is ready to talk about it.”

—Michael Russell; [email protected]

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