I found Budd and Grae Lewis outside of the Springwater Church Holiday Bazaar in Gresham this weekend.
The Lewises own Domo Dogs, a Japanese-fusion hot dog cart that has no permanent location—much like the Lewises, who became homeless last year.
Until then, they'd owned a lovely and modest home in St. Helens. Budd Lewis used to be a successful writer and animator who worked on TV shows like 'Smurfs' while Grae Lewis worked as a technician designing Intel chips. Just before the economy crashed, Grae left her job to retrain as a publisher, anticipating that her job at Intel would either be outsourced or rendered "obsolete". But tuition at her Vancouver, Canada, college was much higher than expected, and the Lewises quickly ran out of savings. To make matters worse, their renter bailed and the couple's home was foreclosed on—a fact they learned when they pulled into their driveway and saw a 'For Sale' sign.
Approaching rock bottom, the couple decided to reboot their lives with a food cart. While living in Vancouver, Grae and Budd had noticed the success of a Japanese hot dog cart called Japa Dog. The Lewises liked the Japanese-fusion hot dogs served there, but Budd was pretty sure he could do it better. On Friday nights, he whipped up Japanese sauces and experimented with flavor combinations for his and Grae's dinner. Realizing that Budd was onto something good with his Friday night dinners, the pair rallied for seed money for their cart. Grae emptied her 401(k), Budd sold the rights to one of his comic book characters, and Domo Dogs was born.
The hot dogs they dished up outside the Gresham church were no disappointment. The menu is to-the-point, offering just two options: the Major Domo (dressed with teriyaki onions, flaked seaweed, sesame seeds, sweet chili sauce and Ponzu-mayo) or the Domo-Yaki (dressed with daikon sprouts, coconut-cream peanut sauce, sweet chili sauce and teri-mayo).
The hot dogs are so good that I willingly consumed mayonnaise for the first time since fourth grade.
More on Grae and Budd's cart below the cut!
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