ABOUT MIRISATA
The first Sri Lankan restaurant in Oregon.
The first vegan Sri Lankan restaurant in the world.
About us
Mirisata was founded in summer of 2020 as a COVID-era takeout-only pop-up before opening a restaurant in October of the same year. The restaurant also began as takeout-only but has now expanded to include dine-in service (indoor and outdoor) and cocktails.
We started as a literal hole in the wall (a pickup window) that relied entirely on the quality of our food; now we are a destination restaurant with ambiance to go along with the delicious food.
As Oregon’s first Sri Lankan restaurant, we’ve strived to present an authentic experience while staying true to our vegan ethos. We’re honored to have been voted Best South Asian Restaurant in the Willamette Week’s Best of Portland 2025, where we were up against countless non-vegan restaurants.
Our worker-owners
We're structured as a worker-owned cooperative, currently with ten members: Ro, Alex, Padhma, Anura, Ihan, Theo, Jose, Cassandra, Cyrus, and Zakai.
Four of the ten current worker-owners are Sri Lankan and bring family traditions and recipes to the kitchen, but we do not have a "head chef" like most restaurants. The food we serve is the end product of our collaboration and we're always thrilled to share it with our customers.
About the cooperative model
The United States is home to over 700 worker-owned cooperatives in all types of industries, including dozens in restaurants and food service. The concept is simple: a business where the people who run it (workers) also share decision-making responsibilities and profits (owners).
The resulting dynamic is far different than traditional, hierarchically-structured businesses. There’s no boss (or, at minimum, management is democratically elected) and worker-owners show up each day knowing that any profit their labor generates will be shared amongst the cooperative.
From day one, Mirisata was founded as a worker-owned cooperative. We’ve shared responsibilities, ideas, fears, frustrations, and - more recently - profits. We believe in this model and are always happy to help others along this path.
Worker-owned cooperatives hold seven principles, including that we cooperate with other cooperatives. In that spirit, we encourage you to support other worker-owned cooperatives in Oregon, including Catscratch Vegan Bakery, Workers Tap, SymbiOp, Blue Scorcher, Equal Exchange, Pulse Wellness Cooperative, FloatOn, Breitenbush Hot Springs, and more.
We are tip-free
Everyone deserves to be fairly compensated for their labor. As a cooperative, we set prices that allow us to pay ourselves well, and - if we’re lucky - share profits at the end of the year. As such, we are one of Portland’s only entirely tipless restaurants. No fees, no surcharges - the price you see on the menu is the price you will pay.
Our logo isn't actually a chicken — it's the Sri Lankan Jungle Fowl, which is the national bird of Sri Lanka. Of all the amazing animals in the country, this one has special significance for a vegan restaurant.
There are four jungle fowl species in the world and, while the other three were domesticated to become chickens, the Sri Lankan Jungle Fowl resisted attempts at domestication and is still only found living free in the wild.
To design the logo, we commissioned our friend Suprabha Irugalratne, a vegan activist and illustrator from Kandy. Thank you, Sue!
