Shoreline Inn Bistro — Restaurant in Port Orford

Put simply, I've never felt so compelled to advocate for something online. Because the weight of each poor review on Google is offset only by several equally spectacular ones, I can only hope that my words do justice to the magnitude of recognition this hidden gem deserves. To whoever comes across this review, remember that stars and statistics are a small part of a much bigger picture. Embrace novelty. Be spontaneous. Stray from the mainstream, and you'll stumble into the greatest clam chowder you've ever tasted.

Imagine having just graduated: you embark upon a hastily-planned roadtrip across the pacific northwest with two close friends, stopping here and there and wherever catches your eye. You reserve campsites and hotels the day of. You never know where you're headed until you've arrived. Far removed from the filter of a pre-planned vacation, you shed the layers of micromanagement that deprive you of an authentic experience. You visit the "Shoreline Inn Bistro" because why not? You have no regrets.

If you can't tell already, this isn't a testament to the flavor of food or the quality of service. I'll let the countless other positive reviews for this inn and restaurant speak to its merit. I'm talking about the little things in life that make it count. The conversations you strike up with a kind, overworked, and underappreciated owner named Craig. Unexpected tips for what to see and where to visit. Tiny insights into the local sourcing of fresh ingredients. Humility and humanity wrapped in a warm meal and offered side by side with the insides of a sourdough bread bowl. Where another restaurant might've tossed it, this place kept sight of the filling that...

It sucks writing this review as the owner seems like a decent person trying to run a small business but I'm flabbergasted this place is rated so high.

To be fair, maybe it was an off night as we were told it's normally run by the wife, while we were served by the husband. Visited back in ~April.

We ordered a burger and the fish and chips. Burger was small, dry and fries were undercooked. Fish and chips were tiny - three end pieces of ling cod, all tail ends. We were told it was local - no reason to doubt but they were mostly flavourless.

Frankly, their menu is too large for their skill/staffing level. It reminds me of the common Kitchen Nightmares (UK) trope where an owner who has never run a restaurant before, wants to do it out of passion and wants to 'please everybody' with the 'standard pub/vacation town' menu. None of the food was spoilt so not quite warranting that level of comparison, but I honestly don't know how they would generally survive as a restaurant sustainably, even though I wish them the best. He did mention this was a fairly new endeavour by his wife.

I'll also say that I don't think it's fair to bias reviews/expectations that maybe it's just highly rated for a small town: on the same trip, in a random spot in the middle of nowhere, Utah, with probably less than a thousand residents (aka Torrey), we were served a spectacular burger out of a food truck.

Nice...

This place just randomly closed on us, while we were crossing the street to go there.

Google says they were open till 8:00 p.m. and as we were walking down the street we saw two big open signs in the window, that were lit and on.

As we were walking towards the restaurant the door closed.

We looked in the windows and there werea few people inside at the tables.

We tried to open the door and it was locked. There was a doorbell so we rang it and nothing.

Tried calling the phone number on the door and no answer.

Finally we knocked on the door one last time, and a 10 year old answered, ask me what I wanted, and said they were just now closing. Couldn't give me a reason.

I pointed out that Google said they closed at 8:00 p.m. and that the open lights were still on and he said they just forgot to turn them off.

We walked by 15 minutes later and the open signs were still on.

We saw another group of people standing out front trying to figure out if it was open or not.

There's only like four places to eat in town, we already ate at the other three so we were looking forward to this one. I don't know how these kinds of places even stay open when they just close randomly with no...