About Us

Erin and Tricia at a summer wedding

Proprietor Tricia Butler is a fifth-generation Southerner from a large family of restaurateurs in South Carolina, where she learned the spirit of hospitality that Southerners are famous for and acquired early on the discipline and attention to detail demanded by professional culinary arts.

Tricia has worked in the restaurant and catering industry for over twenty years, and starting a catering business focusing on Southern food was a natural progression when moving to Portland in 2005.

Our head chef, Erin Meeker, is from an old Oregon farming family and grew up intimately tied to the food of the Pacific Northwest. She grew up catching crawdads, helping with the yearly cider press, picking strawberries, and eating fresh churned peach ice cream – all which exposed her early to a love of food and a respect for seasonal ingredients.

After an intense few weeks with Bob Neroni at the EVOO cooking school in Cannon Beach, OR, Erin moved to New Orleans just after Hurricane Katrina. She quickly found a job at the illustrious Court of Two Sisters in the French Quarter, quickly rising through the ranks to Sous Chef and then night time Chef.

Upon her return to Portland, Erin was the kitchen manager for the Matchbox Lounge. She then decided to join Sassafras, as their roots in Southern food traditions and their devotion to using seasonal and local ingredients struck a strong chord. Today Erin is in charge of all Sassafras kitchen operations – including staffing, menu planning, overseeing the canning of our preserved goods, customer consultations, and new recipe development.