We're building something Portland has never seen before 🌲 ☕️ 🎬

A place where our coffee, food culture, and independent filmmaking scene is part of the same creative ecosystem.

Flannel Donut Studio Café is a working stop-motion animation studio, café, taproom, event space, and screening room—all under one roof in the heart of Portland's Pearl District.

This is a real working studio where stories are animated by hand, in public, every single day.

Where every cup of coffee, pastry, and pint helps support the artists, animators, and films being created just a few feet away.

Sounds dreamy, right? That said, IF WE DO NOT REACH 80% OF OUR FUNDRAISING GOAL, WE RECEIVE ZERO FUNDS FROM THIS CAMPAIGN. Read on, because you're really gonna love this ⬇🌲

Come in for handmade coffee and pastries and discover something unexpected: animators bringing stories to life, on miniature sets built for handcrafted puppets adventuring one micro-movement at a time. Think of it as an invitation to step inside our stop motion creative world as it grows and changes each day.

In fact, every visit helps build and sustain a creative ecosystem where food, drink, and community directly support independent filmmaking and animation.

Our beautiful city of Portland, Oregon is celebrated as a coffee-centric foodie paradise. But what many people don't realize is that Portland is also one of the leading stop-motion animation cities in the world. What hasn't existed before is a place where those two worlds directly support one another.

Some of the most talented animators, puppet makers, set builders, and craftspeople in the industry call this city home—and we're fortunate to work alongside them. Our team brings decades of Emmy, Oscar, and Annie Award-winning animation, puppet fabrication, and set-building experience to the table. Now we're creating something new: a public-facing stop motion studio where visitors can experience handmade craft and meticulous storytelling up close, rather than hidden behind studio walls.

At Flannel Donut Studio Café, guests can watch miniature worlds being built, puppets being animated, and stories taking shape in real time—all while enjoying the food, drinks, and hospitality Portland is known for. Every visit helps support the artists and filmmakers creating those stories. It's a place where great coffee fuels creativity, and where you, our audience and community, become part of the filmmaking process itself.

The Team

Our studio is built by a small but highly specialized team with the exact mix of creative, technical, and operational expertise needed to launch at scale from day one.

Founding Team:

Rob has spent decades directing and animating in stop motion and narrative film, earning two Emmy's along the way. His experience grounds the studio in craft, helping transform big ideas into meaningful work that our audience can connect with.

Kristen brings a masters degree in Organizational Leadership along with experience in screenwriting, editing and building interdisciplinary creative ecosystems. Her role focuses on aligning production, education and experience into a butter and sugar-coated, sustainable working system.

Pippin bridges technology and finance, supporting the infrastructure that makes the studio viable. From systems design to financial structure, his work ensures the creative vision is supported by stable, scalable foundations.

Core Build & R&D Team:

Kyle leads development and set design, shaping the tactile world of the studio from build outs to storytelling spaces, ensuring the space functions as both production facility and immersive creative environment.

Maleah oversees food & bakery R&D, developing the systems, workflows, and experimentation behind the café side of the studio. Her work helps translate a working café into a repeatable, high-quality production system that supports both service and storytelling.

Together, we integrate movie making, storytelling, spatial design, hospitality, and systems thinking; allowing the Studio Café to function as a unified creative engine rather than separate departments.

Viewable from nearly every seat in the café—including the catwalk above—is an 800 sq ft stage where set designer Kyle Arneson has designed the world for our first in-house stop-motion feature. Each day, guests can enjoy coffee as animators capture the story frame by frame, with behind-the-scenes updates and livestreams shared through our social channels.

Venture upstairs to our taproom, for those post-shoot conversations, studio notes or just to unwind with fellow filmmakers. Also doubles as event space to host talks and workshops, as well as private events.

Adjacent to the taproom is our dedicated screening room for:

• Independent film showings
• Micro film festivals
• Workshops
• Artist talks
• Community events
• Works in progress

This is a place to test ideas, find collaborators, share unfinished work, and premiere new films in front of a live audience. We feel Portland needs more places where creative people can meet, learn, and build together and we're delighted to be able to utilize this space to make those connections.

We’ve been building toward opening day for months.

We have the lease in hand.

The animation team is assembled.

We’ve hired our café and bakery talent.

Equipment has arrived at the space.

We can build sets, make puppets, and begin filming immediately.

Now we're inviting the community that believes in independent art, handmade craft, and creative gathering spaces to help us open the doors.

We've already done the heavy lifting: securing the space, building the team, developing the business model, and transforming this idea from a dream into a real place taking shape in Portland. What remains are the final pieces that turn an empty building into a working studio café: one that's ready to delight, surprise, and bring people together.

We still need a handful of essential pieces, including an espresso machine, commercial oven, dough mixer, and dishwasher, along with a few months of operating runway for staff, inventory, and to prepare for opening day. You'll find many of these items in our campaign wishlist.

Every contribution moves us closer to launch. If we reach our goal, we'll be able to purchase critical equipment and complete the final steps needed to open. If we reach our stretch goals, we'll be able to train staff, soft open the café, expand programming, create more opportunities for artists, and begin welcoming you into the space we've been building together.

We're not raising money to keep dreaming about this place—we're raising money to open it ✨

Every contribution helps us put chairs around our tables, stock the kitchen with inventory and ingredients, give us operating runway and ultimately launch a new model for independent creativity in Portland.

When you back this campaign, you’re helping build a gathering place for independent art—shared over great food and drink—where filmmakers, artists, and audiences connect, and creative people can find each other again.

What if we reach our goal and you still want to jump in and be a part of history?

We go BIGGER thanks to you!

$50K — The Open Door 📽️

The first thing we do with stretch dollars is give the room away. This level unlocks two free community screening nights of curated films from our community in our first season: open to the public, RSVP only. Every backer's name goes in the opening-night credits.

$60K — Hands-On 🎬

To us, a place isn't a community until people are making things in it. This level unlocks two free hands-on workshops in puppet fabrication, animation technique, etc. Limited space available.

$75K — The Greenlight 🚀

This level funds a micro-residency: Studio time and a grant for one Portland-based animator to make something real in the space. We'll open applications 3 months after the studio is up and running.

$100K — The Big Shave 🪒

Long story (really, really) short: Twenty years ago I lost a peanut butter and jelly eating contest while working at LAIKA, and they shaved my head on camera. My hair's down to my elbows now. If we hit $100K, it all comes off again 🫣

We'll even throw a party to do it!

Follow our entire 30 day fundraising story on Instagram + Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/@flanneldonut