While the Plainview is officially listed as being in Coos Bay, it is actually closer to the little fishing village of Charleston, just a short drive up the road. Nestled by the water of the bay, Charleston has the feel of a real working town, the sort of place that, while it may depend on the traffic of tourists and sport fishermen, in fact is home to commercial fishermen and the folk who provide them with goods and services. Which is exactly what it is. There's a large commercial fleet that works out of Charleston, and the no-nonsense harbor and docks with their warehouses and tidy but utilitarian buildings bearing the patina of the sea are welcoming but purposeful. There's an RV Park (of course), a public wharf littered with the crushed and shattered shells of clams, several good seafood restaurants (including the well-known High Tide Cafe), gift shops and convenience markets, a shipyard, boat charter companies, marine suppliers, towing and salvage companies and even a golf course.
We cruised up and down the narrow streets to get the salty, work-roughened character of the place, but I'd already spotted breakfast. It was hard to miss: a big red barn by the side of the highway with the word B A C O N spelled out on its roof in four-foot letters. It seemed to be speaking directly to me and I all but wrenched the wheel away from the Water Man in my hurry to steer him into the parking lot.
The Breakfast Barn has a sort of reverse-Tardis effect. It looks huge on the outside, but inside it doesn't seem so big. A lot of the space is taken up by the big kitchen, housed in a wing built onto the side. The main structure has a set of stairs running right down the middle that lead to the upper floor. I don't know if there is more seating or just stacks of pancake mix and crates of syrup lurking up there.
The downstairs dining room was packed, so we wound up sitting at the counter. The counter is not my favorite place to sit, but in this case I'm glad we did because it gave us an entertaining view of the action, which proved to be raucous and crowded with a cheer leading proprietor who believed in telling the truth but made you feel OK about it. He paced back and forth in the narrow space between counter and kitchen pass-through, exhorting the cooks to greater effort, greeting new customers coming in the door, and alternately praising and apologizing to the room at large.
"That booth back there sucks, it's way too small!"
"I'm sorry you had to wait so long, I'm a terrible server!"
"You guys are AWESOME!"
We had to sit there awhile before we were offered coffee, and awhile after that before the always-in-motion guy behind the counter acknowledged us. We didn't feel neglected, the place was hoppin' and so was he. He waltzed over, promised to be right back to take our order, spun around to take an order down the counter from us, then came back to lean in and tell us, with an apologetic grin, "I gotta be honest, guys, the whole restaurant has their order in before you, so it's probably gonna be about 30 minutes before you get your food. You guys OK with that?"
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| The view from the counter, looking into the kitchen where four strapping young cooks were turning out breakfast. |
I'm pretty sure this was Lucas, the man who now owns Nonnie's with his wife Ashley since the couple inherited it from Ashley's grandparents a few years ago, according to the back of the menu, which tells the story of the Breakfast Barn from its beginning in the seventies up to its current incarnation.
We looked at him for a second before we burst out laughing. You couldn't fault him for his frankness and self deprecating honesty. We assured him we would be willing to wait, and put in our orders. I decided on the house specialty bacon--which Lucas told me he had cut, seasoned and smoked himself--a couple of poached eggs, hash browns and the house baked sourdough toast.
While we waited for our food we watched the ever evolving show of the four guys in the kitchen cooking, the waitress flying back and forth from table to table, and Lucas greeting everyone as they came in. "You're beautiful!" he exclaimed. "You guys are awesome!"
The walls were covered in menus, notes, little signs, drawings, memorabilia and photos. Hung on the wall near our spot at the counter was a calendar. A bacon calendar.
We didn't time how long it took for our food to arrive. It wasn't speedy, but perhaps it wasn't as long as half an hour. Our plates arrived piping hot, and we set to.
It's not difficult to find glowing reviews for the Breakfast Barn (including their house specialty, the homemade bacon), and it's clear this is a local favorite with a loyal clientele. Which is why I'm a bit puzzled that I found myself slightly underwhelmed by the food. The bacon, greatly anticipated, was a disappointment. It was certainly thick, but it was wildly salty and fatty. Now, hold on a minute. Salt and fat are the main constituents of bacon, I know! We bacon lovers love this about bacon! But there has to be more. Where was the smokiness, the sweetness, the subtle complex of flavors that balance out the salt? Even after I'd dosed my serving with maple syrup, a regular habit of mine, I couldn't get past the feeling that I was chewing a basically tasteless wad of heavily salted fat. I thought it might be me. Maybe I was having trouble waking up, maybe this was a style of bacon that just wasn't my cup of tea. And that could be. But the fact remains that I left some of it on my plate. And bacon, in my world, is like gold dust. You just don't leave it lying around on plates. You tuck it away in a safe place, the vault of your stomach or if absolutely necessary, a napkin or a takeaway box. Not this time. I soldiered on as far as I could and finally decided my taste buds had voted their conscience and would not be gainsaid.
The disappointment didn't end there. Having recently rediscovered poached eggs, I was looking forward to them. But the pair I got were rubbery and . . . incredibly salty. And they had a slightly odd taste. All I can say about the hash browns is that they were bland. My last hope was the sourdough toast, usually a guaranteed savory win. It wasn't bad, it was simply forgettable, with barely a hint of real sourdough taste.
It's as though the punch, the bang, the kick-it-up-a-notch flavor that you hope to find in house made food had gone missing. The seasoning, so talked about on the menu and by the server, seemed to be nothing more than heavy salt. Where was the mild creaminess of a poached egg, the tang of the sourdough? I don't enjoy the sport of mean food reviews like some folks do, and that's not my purpose here. But I have to admit that I expected more. My portion alone was $13 before the tip (one really good thing you can say about Oregon--there's no sales tax there!), so this is not exactly cheap food. Worth it if it had lived up to expectations, but as it is, I'm not so sure.
Still, my breakfast was no worse (and in some respects better) than some I've had at chain restaurants, and I did not go away hungry. Perhaps I would have liked the pancakes better, or a different batch of that much vaunted homemade bacon. In any case I don't regret trying the Breakfast Barn. It was worth it for the atmosphere and the entertainment of watching four strapping young hotties work the grill while listening to Lucas' badinage over the roar of happy diners. For that I'll give them Three Trees. They are doing a bangup business, obviously satisfying a lot of folks while contributing to the local economy and keeping the long running tradition of breakfast at the big red barn going. That's worth something. I would give them another shot if I were in town. You might to give them a try too if you are passing through Charleston on Cape Arago Highway and looking for traditional American fare, breakfast or lunch.
We gently walked off some of our breakfast, strolling next door to a store that sold the ubiquitous salt water taffy, plus bait and tackle, beer, deli sandwiches and other necessities of life. We walked along the public wharf, looked over the side and down into the surprisingly clear water to the bottom, and then went across the street to Kinnee's Gifts and Shells. I was looking for earrings and I found a pair made of sunstone, the Oregon state gemstone. I fell in love with them but they were too spendy, so I set them down, deciding that if I couldn't stop thinking about them I'd come back for them. I'm still thinking about them, but it was probably a good thing I exercised some restraint because though I didn't know it yet, I was going to need that cash for a new fuel pump for Goose. I contented myself with a pair of Solmate Socks instead.
On the way out we stopped to pay our respects to Charlie Tuna. Charleston used to be known as "Charlie Town," so Charlie is the perfect spokesperson (spokesfish?). He's a big wooden likeness of the Starkist Tuna mascot, but he's not the first incarnation to stand in Charleston. The earlier version, eight feet tall and carved from a solid piece of cypress, was a victim of foul play back in 2008. A couple of idiots took him as a prank but panicked when the authorities started to close in and they couldn't get him back in their truck to hide him. So they chain sawed him into fillets. They were caught in the dastardly act, so there is at least some justice in this world. Perhaps getting sawed up was a mercy of sorts, since it revealed the hidden cancer of rot and insect damage that was hollowing out Charlie's insides and would have meant a slow and undignified end. The town held a funeral, cremated the remains and buried them near the Charleston visitor center, presumably in sight of the place where he stood for so many years. From the local NBC news affiliate story comes this priceless quote:
"Mourners are invited to share stories about Charlie, and tuna recipes."
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| The new incarnation of Charlie. |
