Miami-based Reef Technology, which operates numerous “ghost kitchen” trucks throughout the city preparing fast food deliveries, currently owes Multnomah County $3,895 in fees for consulting services, inspections and permits.
Unpaid invoices date back to Spring 2021.
The county’s advisory service focuses on health and sanitation requirements for its food cart pods and ghost kitchen trucks.Despite multiple emails from Multnomah County officials asking Reef employees and management to pay their invoices immediately, Reef has not yet reimbursed the county for these consultation fees, as recorded by world war exhibit.
“Our front desk supervisor asked me to forward to your organization an overdue invoice for consulting work we provided to you; the invoice was originally mailed to you on February 1, 2021,” a county health inspector wrote in Write to Reef Manager August 18th. September 2022. “Please provide Multnomah County with outstanding payments as soon as possible.”
“All of those invoices still appear to be unpaid,” said Jeffrey Martin, environmental health manager for the Multnomah County Health Department — as did inspection and permit fees.
Reef’s corporate office did not respond world warrequest for comment.
Maybe a small amount of delinquent fees doesn’t seem like a big deal to the county. But Reef is not a mom-and-pop: With $1 billion in 2020 from overseas investors including SoftBank and an investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government, the company is flush with cash. Reef’s big plan: Transform urban parking lots in major cities into micro-communities with retail, food, electric vehicle charging stations, and fulfillment centers.
Reef also manages most of the parking lots in downtown Portland (it bought three of the largest national parking companies in 2019 and took over all of their management contracts), though world war It was reported earlier this month that it was losing some of its most meaningful contracts with owners. This includes the Expo Center and Convention Center contracts with Metro, the Moda Center parking lot contract, and the Downtown Development Group contract.
About half of Reef’s 22 permitted ghost kitchen trucks have closed or disappeared from their listed addresses entirely, and most of them only sell 5 to 10 fast food brands.
Earlier this month, Reef declined to answer specific questions about operations in Portland.
Additionally, none of the Reef-managed food cart pods in the Reef-managed parking lot in downtown Portland have the food pod permits required by the county. Although health inspectors have received six emails since the beginning of the year, world war Tell Reef Managers about the application by logging the request.