Our classic vision of reindeer is magical flying animals that pull Santa’s sleigh each Christmas. Not as food. Beez Neez Gourmet Sausages is a Portland, Oregon, food cart that is challenging that vision. That’s right, you can buy a hot dog made from Alaskan reindeer sausage at 44o SW 3rd Ave in downtown PDX.

The Beez Neez Gourmet Sausages Food Cart

Bryan Veal started Bees Neez not as a ‘traditional’ food cart but as a hot dog cart serving exotic game sausages on a bun at events and on the street corners of downtown Portland. Beez Neez has since moved into a trailer at their current location.

Bryan came to Portland from Anchorage, Alaska. While visiting in September of 2009, Bryan tried ten food carts in one day and decided to open a food cart specializing in the sausages he’d enjoyed in Alaska. A month later, Beez Neez was selling specialty sausages the residents of the Rose City.

Sausages from Beez Neez cooking on a flattop grill.

Bryan serves German bratwurst, Louisiana hot link sausages, a house-made vegan sausage, along with his signature sausage made with Alaskan reindeer. You can on occasion also get elk, venison, and wild boar.

Once you’ve consumed your sausage you can enjoy one of Bryan’s other house specialties, scratch-made brownies. Caramel, coconut rum, peanut butter and strawberry, and triple chocolate are just a few of the flavors available.

One of Bryan's brownies that are made in the cart

As Bryan was building his food cart brand he decided on the name of Beez Neez as a combination of his nickname “B” and the early twentieth-century phrase “bees knees” which was a euphemism for “best of the best.”

The Alaskan reindeer sausage from the Beez Neez food cart in Portland, Oregon

The Alaskan reindeer sausage comes with creamy pepper mustard, stone-ground mustard and homemade fermented kraut. The Louisiana hot link sausage is decorated with a garlic hot sauce, barbecue sauce, a pickled red cabbage and apple kraut. The majority of Bryan’s condiments and sauces are made from scratch in the cart.

Listen now as Steven Shomler and Ken Wilson talk with Bryan Veal about his Beez Neez food cart and Alaskan reindeer sausage.

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