Oregon, a 1960s São Paulo burger joint, closes its doors after having purchased a building

Since the end of last year, whoever passes on the corner between Rua dos Pinheiros and Avenida Pedroso de Moraes, in the west of São Paulo, finds Oregon, a cafeteria that has spent most of the last five decades in operation, with nothing inside.

From the entrance, you can see the room without the wooden counter, the tables and the classic stools — only the bricklayers working on the renovation of the eight-story building above the hamburger shop walk around.

The future of the cafeteria, which has been part of the neighborhood’s landscape since it was opened in 1967 by the Portuguese Raimundo Pereira Guedes, has been uncertain since August 2020. It was in that year that Yuca — a company known for acquiring buildings in São Paulo, renovated them and creating colivings and other housing formats — bought the building that has Oregon on its ground floor.

Since then, residents have left the apartments in the building. The family that manages the cafeteria, then, was left alone there, in a period of uncertainty, not knowing what would happen to the enterprise.

At the time, Jairo, son-in-law of Raimundo, who died in 2020, said that negotiations were confused and that the old and new administrations did not understand each other. According to Yuca, the agreements were made “in a transparent and friendly manner” and included “compensation funds and negotiations favorable to the occupiers”.

The report sought from the beginning of this week the family that played in Oregon to find out if they intend to reopen the diner at a new address, but she did not respond. All equipment and furniture from the site have already been removed.

Yuca, the new administrator of the space, says that it intends to use the point as the headquarters for two new commercial developments, to integrate the renovated building into the neighborhood. They are expected to open in April, but it is not yet known which companies will take the place.

If it doesn’t reopen, Oregon joins a long list of addresses that closed during the pandemic, such as Alberta #3, Don Curro, Mangiare, Pasv, Lá da Venda, among others.