All four tables at LoRell’s are full on a Tuesday around lunch, with groups of people employing stacks of napkins in a losing battle against hot honey and barbecue sauce. A woman dances to oldies as she walks in to pick up a takeout order. In the back, the fryer bubbles.
This is the newest home of LoRell’s Chicken Shack, Darell Preston’s fried chicken spot that has gone on an odyssey from Southeast Portland, to Northeast to the Lloyd Center.
Now, LoRell’s has landed on North Russel Street in a building owned by the 1803 Fund, a nonprofit investing in Portland’s Black community. And while the location may have changed, the little shop is still serving succulent, lemon pepper-y, crispy chicken on slices of white bread…