Jade Cow Creamery opened its scoop counter on July 18 inside Flock Food Hall, filling the ground floor of downtown Portland's Ritz-Carlton tower with small-batch, Asian-influenced flavors like coconut pandan and White Rabbit. Owner Raymond Chau shares the stall with Nest & Vine, the food hall's in-house wine bar, after taking over its day-to-day operations himself. That means the same counter now pours glasses of wine alongside scoops of ube cookies-and-cream, all under one roof at Flock Food Hall.
Chau previously co-owned Lúa on North Williams, a restaurant that closed this past May after five years in business, as reported by Eater Portland. The outlet reports that Lúa's closure came amid declining sales over its final two years, and that Chau had already started making ice cream for friends and family last winter, well before Flock Food Hall offered him a chance to share space with Nest & Vine.
That wasn't Chau's first venture into Portland's food scene. Before Lúa, he co-owned Lotus Cafe alongside business partners Alvin Wang and Phumitas Kaewklang, according to Resy, which described the cafe as an early incubator for ideas he later brought to Lúa.
Vietnamese-Chinese Roots Shape the Menu
Chau, who has a Vietnamese-Chinese background, said he drew inspiration from ice cream shops in Los Angeles and San Francisco while experimenting with Asian-influenced flavors. Coconut pandan is his personal favorite on the menu, and the White Rabbit scoop takes its name from the Chinese milk candy of the same flavor.
Beyond single scoops, the shop offers four-flavor flights, take-home pints and a rotating lineup that includes Jasmine Butterfly Pea Tea, Ube Cookies & Cream, Black Sesame and Vietnamese Coffee, prepared in small batches daily. The mix echoes what Southern California's Wanderlust Creamery has built a following on with its own ube malted crunch and Thai tea ice creams.
Jade Cow Creamery doesn't currently offer non-dairy flavors, though Chau is developing some. He's said ice cream is more forgiving and versatile than baking, and that the shared, mixed-use setup at Flock is easier to set up, clean and manage than running a full restaurant — a shift that's already brought requests for pints beyond what's on the counter. Last fall, he supplied Hong Kong milk tea, matcha, fish sauce and tamarind ice creams for private gatherings and events, a preview of what eventually became Jade Cow Creamery's menu.
A Food Hall Built Where Portland's Biggest Cart Pod Used to Stand
Flock Food Hall itself opened Feb. 2, 2025, an 8,000-square-foot indoor-outdoor market built with a $3 million loan from Prosper Portland, the city's economic development agency. That financing required roughly 45% of construction costs — about $1.2 million — to go to Minority Business Enterprise firms, with 35% of construction hours completed by trade apprentices.
The address carries its own culinary history. It's where the Southwest Alder Street food cart pod once stood — Portland's largest cart pod, with roughly 60 vendors at its peak — before it closed in June 2019 after operating since the 1990s, according to OPB.
Jade Cow Creamery and Nest & Vine now share the hall with roughly eight other concepts, including bb.q Chicken, Queen Mama's Kitchen, Pan Roast PNW, ZabPinto Thai Kitchen, Birrieria La Plaza, HK Café, Tous les Jours bakery and Prime Tap House, according to Prosper Portland's vendor rundown. The hall was designed by Woodblock Architecture to accommodate up to 10 micro-restaurant and bar concepts.
Inside a Tower Still Finding Its Footing
Block 216 itself rises 460 feet across 35 floors, making it Portland's fifth-tallest structure and the largest building by volume built in the city since the U.S. Bancorp Tower, according to Wikipedia. The tower houses a 251-room Ritz-Carlton hotel along with 132 condominiums and ground-floor retail space that includes Flock Food Hall.
Those condos haven't sold as easily as planned. Lender Ready Capital took ownership of Block 216 in July 2025 through a deed-in-lieu transaction, and by February prices had been cut by roughly half — with two-bedroom units dropping from $2.3–$2.5 million to $1.2–$1.7 million — as Hoodline reported in its half-off condo comeback story.
AAPI Pop-Up Market Meets Pride Weekend Crowds
Flock Food Hall has leaned into its Asian food community ties beyond Jade Cow Creamery's counter. The venue launched a monthly AAPI-focused Pop Up Market in June, running the second Saturday of each month through September, free from noon to 4 p.m., according to Portland Living on the Cheap.
Jade Cow Creamery's opening weekend also landed during Portland's 2026 Pride festivities, which drew crowds to downtown eateries near the parade route just blocks away, as noted by Bridgetown Bites. Jade Cow Creamery is open daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. at 917 SW Alder Street.
