The Mother Lode — Restaurant in Baker City

We decided to give this place a try based on the reviews and my husband’s love of homemade chicken fried steak. When we walked in, we almost left based on the “interesting” smell in the place, which might be from the sourdough starter they make and sell here. Based on other reviews, we decided to stay and glad we did. The chicken fried steak was huge. He said it was almost too thick. The gravy was good as well. The sour dough bread was tasty but a bit too hard. I wanted the Ruben but they were out of rye bread so opted for the mushroom, Swiss burger. It was very good. I also loved the hand cut fries which were super brown and crispy. Not how everyone would want them, but cooked my favorite way! The environment is different with the old train car they have cut in half and placed around a building to make the restaurant. Service was...

On our cross country road trip to and from a wedding, we've discovered that this was the actual destination. No other stops in the past two weeks have compared to the bliss of eating here. Everything we ordered was incredible, from the fried pickles to the burger to the tomato-bacon soup and grilled cheese on their fresh and fancy sourdough. Our waitress was so kind and friendly, sort of like an aunt who always is happy to see you and is prepared to feed you fresh biscuits and gravy at a moments notice. (Tip: GET THE BISCUITS AND GRAVY). Honestly, just move to this town for a week or two so you can try one of everything they have. (The four stars in atmosphere is due to smelly bathrooms, but honestly after the first bite of heaven touched my tongue I could have been eating in a dinosaur's dung heap and not given a single hoot.) Go...

The food was great. I ordered biscuits and gravy and had more than I could eat, which doesn't happen often. The biscuits are sourdough and huge. They're crisp on the outside and a bit dense. They tasted great and are VERY filling. The gravy is pretty tasty as well

The sourdough toast is also good

The omelets are huge and full of meat.

The waitress was very friendly and talkative.

The only complaint was a smell and the ketchup bottles like a few others have said. I don't know if it was the kitchen or the railcars or what it was. Something was just a bit off.

The ketchup bottle at the table had maybe 50% of the label left on it and just looked like an old and very reused bottle. I'm sure it's fine, but it's pretty off-putting. I didn't need ketchup anyway, but....

If I'm in town and hungry,...