Oregon Road Trip

A McMenamins Experience, part 2

We left off last month in Tillamook where we visited the Air Museum and the Tillamook cheese factory. Now on to our next McMenamins overnight!

We stayed at the Hotel Oregon, built in 1905, on the main street of McMinnville. No soaking pool, but the rooftop bar makes up for that. With several levels of bar plus the inside area, it is a total delight in the summer. Even though it was cool when we were there, nothing would have kept us off the roof! And we weren't the only ones there. Plus, the hotel is close to numerous tasting rooms. A classic pub serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and the Paragon lounge is also in the lobby. The basement (I mean "cellar") offers a bar as well.

It's difficult for us to eat at Hotel Oregon because we are completely smitten with La Rambla Restaurant and Bar down the street. Fresh Northwest ingredients used in Spanish cuisine. So many tapas (hot, cold, vegetarian), paella, pinchos, charcuterie and cheese. Mainly local wines, but Spanish wines as well. After basement dwelling the night before, the 4 ^th floor room with sun streaming through large windows was a welcome difference.

Food photo courtesy of La Rambla

Breakfast was at the Crescent Café. The original owners had a place in San Francisco that Tom loved and we were happy to find them in McMinnville years ago. They have since sold it, but many of the dishes are the same and quality stays high. Granola and yogurt, Bourbon Vanilla French Toast, Caramelized Banana Pancakes, Blueberry Crepes (lemon whipped cream inside), Bacon and Provolone Crepes. In-house they bake bread, coffee cake, cinnamon rolls, muffins, biscuits.

On the way to Bend, we bought something to eat at an outside table at Belknap Hot Springs along the McKenzie River. Nice landscaping and if you go there, make sure to find the Secret Garden. Belknap is open all year and has two mineral hot spring pools.

In Bend, our destination was the Old St. Francis School, a 1936 Catholic schoolhouse. Classrooms are now hotel rooms, all with their own bathrooms, no communal showers here! There's a pub, movie theater, live music, and a soaking pool with an open-air oculus. Along with the rooms in the main building, there are several separate buildings like the Art House, Education House, Parish House, all filled with hotel rooms. Be sure to ask about the secret rooms (there are many). Before leaving the next morning, we had breakfast in the Old St. Francis Pub. Just one server and he managed to do a great job, including a special order for the kitchen which was happily made by the chef.

Pool photo courtesy of McMenamins

For dinner in Bend, we returned to Zydeco Kitchen & Cocktails in the downtown area. Even on weeknights, they are hopping, so make reservations. Fine Northwestern cuisine with a Southern twist. Barbecue shrimp and grit cake is a house specialty, but pretty much everything is good. Cornmeal fried green tomatoes, nectarine salad, house smoked trout dip, seared duck breast, cavatappi pasta, tenderloin beef filet, and much more. They even offer an after dinner homemade dog biscuit "for your best friend."

Shrimp photo courtesy of Bend, OR, Restaurants

Thursday we headed north, stopping in Scio at the Covered Bridge Coffeehouse Bakery and BBQ. Scio is about a block long and there are few restaurants, so it's great to find one that has a lot of options and offers decent food. It's definitely a community gathering place and fun to "overhear" (spy) farmers discussing machinery and seasonal issues and seeing neighbors meeting for a meal.

We arrived at Edgefield in Troutdale, built in 1911 as the county poor farm. The original buildings have been restored and the place is amazing: 74 acres which you can explore while enjoying a pint. With over 100 rooms and hostel accommodations in the main building, some en suite, some sharing communal bathrooms, you'll find the right room for you. Like most McMenamins, some rooms have basins in the rooms, some don't. Extensive artwork, a distillery, brewery, winery, numerous small bars, golf course, movie theatre, live music, fires to gather around. There are no TVs or phones, encouraging relaxation. Rocking chairs on verandas and Ruby's Spa help. But the soaking pool is the draw, at least for us. It meanders (at a 3.5 foot depth) among beautiful landscaping, metal and glass artwork. There was a concert on the grounds the night we were there (it was Steve Miller last time we were there), and the staff carefully monitors parking so hotel guests are taken care of. We had both dinner and breakfast in the Black Rabbit Restaurant & Bar. Both menus offered a variety of dishes and, again, the quality and flavor were better than we'd had in the past. It was nice to be back.

Pool photo courtesy of Pinterest

We love road trips through Oregon with great back roads. Tripping in late September offered a lot of fall color which was beautiful. And turning it into a McMenamins tour meant looking forward to something fun each night.

Connie Adams/November 2023

If you're interested in recreating the trip, you can buy "Oregon Backroads Tour" on soundrider.com.