I've spent the last two hours at the closing party for Veganopolis on SW 4th. Owner George Black and her partner David Stowell have served thousands of customers since they first opened the store on January 24, 2005, but now plan to go back to Chicago to write a cookbook and start an international franchise operation.

BLACK: "We've had a great time..."

The mood was positive this afternoon, despite marking the closure of a business many Portlanders have enjoyed since it opened. Former loyal customers were allowed to make their own sandwiches, maybe take a free bag of kettle chips, meanwhile, former employees were taking some of the furniture home with them. I saw one guy walking out with a couch while I talked with Black, and someone else seemed to be making off with an old refrigerator. There was champagne. It felt like a party.

More seriously, however, the number one reason Black is giving for their departure? Downtown crime. "I don't expect the streets to be crime free," she says "but the number of crazed meth people shouting obscenities, getting violent, and problems we've had here in the store...I'm getting scared for my personal safety and we were just exhausted from trying to keep things safe."

The pair started business in Portland with a food cart, which they ran for 18 months before moving into the store on SW 4th. Since opening, they've suffered repeated robbery attempts from "wide eyed junkies," and even seen "dope dealers dividing their dope on the table right outside the restaurant," Black says.

There have also been some odd incidents of harassment, with a bag of salami being dumped outside Black's office on one occasion, and another man allegedly screaming sections of the Torah at Stowell, demanding that the restaurant become "kosher." The last straw was in March this year, when Stowell was assaulted on the street corner outside the restaurant, by a man who ended up smashing his head into a lamp post.

"He was beaten badly by a warrant-laden sex offender who didn't even know who he was," says Black, who ended up hiring a bouncer from the next door City Bar at a cost of $800 a month to sit in the restaurant and keep things safe.

"We practiced how to turn difficult people away," she says. "But if things turned violent, then he would step in."

The loss of Veganopolis will come as a major blow to downtown boosters. While crime is reportedly down in central precinct, Black wonders whether that might be because "it's so difficult to report it." She says she has been on the phone to a recorded message after dialing 911, while fighting a would-be-robber for the store's tips jar. Black has personally been assaulted at the restaurant, she says, being shoved to the ground during another, separate struggle for money from the cash register.

Black's attitude to running a vegan restaurant has never been militant. "I don't like this I'm a vegan bullshit, you're not," she says. "It's a party, and everyone's invited. That's always been my attitude."

The franchise operation, which should be under way in 2010, after the cookbook is published, will be $55,000 a pop, and there's already been interest from a well-known rock star in opening a couple of airport franchises, apparently.

Loyal customer Kimberley Haas, who works for an insurance company up the street, said she was sad to see the restaurant moving on. "They have great food, it's really tasty, and it's just too bad they've had these problems," she says. "It shouldn't reach the point where a business has to email its loyal customers giving them the lockdown procedure for the next time there's a robbery in the store."

The restaurant has sold 14,008 spelt chocolate chip cookies, 7970 veganopolis rubens, 5645 roasted eggplant salads, and 5952 democracy burgers since it opened. Tourists have come in, saying "you guys were the first place I wanted to visit," and rock stars including Chrissie Hynde, Smashing Pumpkins, and Joan Jett have all been customers.

"It's too bad they're leaving," says another loyal customer, Casey Martel, who runs the Portland Rosepedal Pedicab firm. "But they've really opened up the market for vegan food here in town."