Chad C.
Yelp
Yet another bastion of real Portland in a sea of overpriced boutique restaurants, house-distilled artisanal cocktails and other pretentious BS. This place has two sides, a café and a bar.
The café is not open on Mondays or Tuesdays (I believe). It's right on the corner so you have a great view of the concrete monolith with cantilevered steel upper floors going in across the street. The service is fast, friendly, and the food is unbelievable, especially considering the prices. The country gravy for their chicken fried steak is a meal unto itself, all sausagy and thick, served in such great portion. I've had breakfast for lunch here too, which is enough food for two.
The bar side is a legit Portland dive - no windows, dark colored everything, dim lighting, pool tables, big half-booths with steel stacking chairs on the open side. Open 7 days a week, I've been in the bar side once for lunch and couldn't order drinks since I was working, but all else from the café side holds true. Plenty of regulars at noon on a weekday, still the bartender was speedy and friendly. Considering the age of this place, I'm surprised it doesn't have that grimy feeling or sort of faint, stale aroma to indicate it had been smoked in.