Vancouver is taking a bite out of the Portland food scene as some of its successful restaurateurs are crossing the river and moving into The Mill, a shopping center on East Mill Plain Boulevard.
The owners of Rally Pizza, which officially opened Monday, said they hope to get on the ground floor of what they see as a growing demand for quality food in Vancouver.
“We think Vancouver has more of a need than Portland does right now,” said Shan Wickham, who opened Rally with her husband, Alan Maniscalco. The couple previously worked at Ken’s Artisan Pizza, a popular restaurant in Portland.
“Especially with housing being the way housing is in Portland, so many people have moved to the Vancouver area,” she said. “And who wants to go back over the bridge to go to dinner after you’ve already driven back and forth across the bridge (to work)?”
Rally seats about 80 people and offers specialty pizzas, salads and frozen custard. Wickham said its gas ovens will get pies from the oven to the plates in around eight minutes. The restaurant will also include a walk-up counter for customers to grab pizza or ?ber-thick custards, known as concretes, to go.
Meanwhile, Smokehouse Provisions is set to open next door in early October, becoming the third barbecue joint from Portland restaurateur B.J. Smith. The other locations in Smith’s barbecue nexus include Smokehouse 21 in Northwest Portland and Smokehouse Tavern in Southeast Portland.
In Vancouver, Smith said he found a customer base that he expects to grow as housing prices push people out of Portland.
“I think it’s a combination of the two: Vancouver is asking for it, and Portland, being the oversaturated market that it is, obviously it doesn’t make a lot of sense for me to open up another location there.”
Smith called Smokehouse Provisions his most ambitious restaurant that, at more than 3,500 square feet, has room for the kind of equipment that would not fit into the other locations.
“The smoker we have here is really going to be the lifeblood of the business,” he said.
The two restaurants are the latest in a slew of businesses opening at The Mill, formerly Garrison Square, at East Mill Plain Boulevard and Garrison Road in the North Garrison Heights neighborhood. Nine months ago, Ben’s Bottle Shop, a beer bar and restaurant with an exhaustive craft beer selection, got up and running and has been doing quite well, its owners said.
“So far, we love it,” said Tim Augustin, co-owner. “This town’s fantastic, this neighborhood is even better and we’re happy to have our new neighbors in the restaurant industry.”
In March, Parkrose Hardware opened a 16,000-square-foot store at the former Ace Hardware in the center. Parkrose Hardware was founded 50 years ago in Portland and opened its first Vancouver store 13 years ago.
Vancouver-based development firm Killian Pacific purchased Garrison Square in 2011 for $3.5 million.
