Frank Quiroga’s ultimate goal is to open a Native American restaurant that features the dishes his auntie taught him to make — Indian tacos, fry bread, deer meat, buffalo and seafood.
“I want to … have a story of each tribe’s background and history with a picture of tribe members and their regalia,” he said.
Frank is a member of the Alaskan Native Tlingit tribe and hopes they will help pay for culinary and business management classes, and provide start-up money to open a restaurant.
“(It’s) more than likely if I can give them a good proposal and show them the plans, step-by-step plans, of how I’d run the restaurant,” he said.
His wife and brother both support his idea.
“(My brother) really supports me and thinks it’s a good idea, and when I get discouraged about thinking it might not happen, he keeps reminding me to just stay positive and keep working on it and it’ll eventually happen,” he said.
Currently, Frank and his wife of eight years don’t have a place to live. They use Frank’s income from selling Street Roots to get a hotel every night they can. The couple and their five-year-old son used to live with Frank’s mother-in-law. Two months ago, however, she moved to North Dakota to be with her ailing mother. They gave her temporary custody of their son because they didn’t have a place to stay.
“He asks to be with us and it’s hard for us to explain that we’re homeless,” he said. “He does (know), but I don’t think he really understands.”
Frank lost his job as a certified flagger, partly because he could no longer use his mother-in-law’s vehicle for transportation. So he and his wife moved to Portland — and away from temptation.
“For a long time I hid from (from my wife) that I was using drugs. She found out one day, and I really loved her, so I quit,” he said.
That was six months ago, and he hasn’t used since.
“It’s not worth losing her or not being able to talk to my son,” he said.
Being in Portland, however, definitely makes it easier for Frank to stay sober. “Up there I knew too many people and too many temptations,” he said.
Frank lost stable housing for the first time at a young age. His mother died when he was 11, leaving him and his younger brother to live with his grandmother.
“The money my grandma was getting for taking in me and my brother was barely enough to keep one of us in school clothes and whatnot, so I pretty much went to the streets and let my brother get the better lifestyle and better upbringing,” he said.
He stayed with friends and relatives, and checked in with his grandmother about once a month. He fell in with the wrong crowd, he said.
“Honestly, the only good thing I can say about that is I got that all out when I was real young, so by the time I hit 17, 18, I realized that wasn’t the way to go and pretty much worked odd jobs from there.”
Now he works selling Street Roots hoping to eventually work toward getting an apartment and fulfilling his goal of opening his own restaurant.
“That’s one of my main reasons for selling Street Roots, to help provide for both of us,” he said. “It keeps me busy so I don’t get tempted and fall back into old ways. It actually feels good to make an honest dollar.”
Frank sells Street Roots outside World Foods in the Pearl District.
