Meet THE FOUNDERS OF ¡BOMBA!
fraNK ISAIAS MOLINA
Director of Culture & Finance
Hi, I’m Frank — and my relationship with food began long before I ever stepped into a restaurant or imagined opening one of my own.
I was born and raised in Puerto Rico, growing up in the caseríos during the height of the drug wars that shaped much of the island throughout the 1970s and 1980s. It was a childhood defined by contradiction: violence and instability existing side by side with deep community, tradition, music — and above all, food.
As a kid, I was shy, timid, and not particularly athletic, which made me an easy target for bullying. Being outside often felt unsafe, so I retreated inward — into the kitchen — where I found comfort beside my mother, Gladys, and her sister Luisa, my aunt who raised me through much of my childhood. I spent hours watching them cook, absorbing everything quietly… or at least trying to.
There was only one rule: don’t ask too many questions and don’t talk too much. I broke both rules constantly.
I wanted to know what went into sofrito — and why every family made it differently. I wanted to understand how to caramelize flan without it sticking to the pan. I wanted to know the exact second when a toston should be smashed — not too early, not too late. Those lessons weren’t written down. They were lived, repeated, smelled, tasted, and felt. And they embedded themselves permanently into my memory.
That chapter ended abruptly when I was twelve years old, when my mother passed away. From that moment on, home became a series of temporary places and extended family visits rather than something permanent. But even as everything shifted, those flavors never left me. They stayed tucked deep in the recesses of my memory — waiting.
At eighteen, I moved to New York City, where I was introduced to the relentless energy of the restaurant world. I worked my way through nearly every front-of-house role imaginable — host, server, runner, bartender — in some of the busiest restaurants in the city. One of my earliest jobs was at the Jekyll & Hyde Club, a five-story themed restaurant where I served as the main host, managing lines of guests who waited hours just to get inside.
New York exposed me to an entirely new culinary universe — hundreds of restaurants across five boroughs, endless styles, cultures, and approaches to hospitality. Eventually, life took me down a different professional path. I became a CPA and public accountant, and over the years built a successful career as an auditor. But with each professional milestone, I felt myself drifting further away from my roots. The more “accomplished” I became on paper, the more distant I felt from the smells, sounds, and flavors that shaped who I was. Thirteen years into my accounting career, fate brought me to Portland — and something shifted.
Portland’s passion for food — the creativity, the intention, the way people talk about ingredients and experiences — reignited something I had buried for years. It reminded me of who I was before life redirected me.
And it was here that I met Nic.
When I told him about my long-held dream of returning to my culinary roots, he mentioned wanting to open a restaurant himself, though he didn’t yet know what kind. I looked at him and said, simply: Puerto Rican food.
He paused — and admitted he knew nothing about it. So I told him about mofongo, about pasteles, about arroz con gandules. About plantains, pork, garlic, and slow-cooked traditions passed down through generations. We sourced the hard-to-find ingredients. We cooked. We tasted.
And that was it. Bomba Sabor y Ritmo was born.
This isn’t just a restaurant. It’s a return. A reclamation. A way of honoring my mother, my aunt, my childhood, and my culture — and bringing a piece of Puerto Rico to a city ready to experience it. We’re bringing the island to the Pacific Northwest. With your help, Bomba will be a place where flavor, rhythm, history, and community come together — and where every dish tells a story that began long ago in a small kitchen in Puerto Rico.
