Loyal Legion — Restaurant in Portland

We've been to the Loyal Legion PDX location a few times now; enough to write a confident post about the food and service and atmosphere. LL is a pre-TSA checkpoint restaurant, so if you are travelling outbound you need to make sure you leave time to get through TSA and get to your gate. It's a bit of a gamble as service is spotty. But let's start with the food: Good selection AND reasonably priced. Smash Burgers are less than $10 (and nicely sized to fit the price), but if you want fries or tots (the best!) or another side it costs a bit more. We've ordered burgers twice with one visit being served the saltiest burger ever made. We never finished half of it. We've had some of the "bowls" which were very tasty (and well priced). Their chili is made for rainy Portland nights, and again reasonably priced. The German Style Frankfurter was exceptional airport food. The beers (that's why you are there) are almost too many to choose from. Safe to say you will find one to love and come back for next time you wander through PDX. We are not fans of the self-service model currently being used (order food and drink at the bar, they give you a number, and they deliver food to your dining area table or bar). Flagging someone down to take your order is not always easy and more than once we felt we were imposing on their time - not a good recipe for making good impressions. On our fist visit we were able to chat up a server who as very nice and had only good things to say about being part of LL at PDX. Since then, pretty sour faces and limited small talk. I couldn't help but think "That's the impression PDX is leaving with people." The location of LL is "good", not great. Easy to find, above the security exit, so you can flag down "arrivees" (I know its not a word, but it should be) that might join you after their flight, or arrive early enough to enjoy your own night out before your passenger exits the security area. Either way it's a nice (not great) view of the PDX ceiling - adorned, now, with transient helium balloons that sadly take away from the aesthetics the creators of this ceiling no doubt wanted to convey.. The window facing the airport does not face a runway, rather two terminals with jets pulling in and out. The vibe is so-so at that window. And at night you can forget about seeing anything through the tinted windows. There are some 2-to-4 seat booths along the edge overlooking the active and brightly colored check-in area, and, if you are lucky enough to be there on certain nights, you might hear the piano player below entertaining the "arivees". But if you sit just a row inside the dining area, or behind the bar, well, you could be in Anywhere USA. There are televisions for watching sports (or whatever was left on) but rarely do they change them to keep up with the hot games people might want to watch. Good luck tracking down someone again just to change a channel. Along with the mish-mash of local sports pictures on the other walls, they appear to be more decorative than sports-bar functional. Is it better than Stanford's or Beaches (the old PDX pre-security restaurants)? No. But it might be more fitting for a busy airport where people are on the move. But if PDX's hopes are to get people to stay a while and enjoy the atmosphere, you will be better served inside the security areas at some place like Henry's Tavern (C Concourse) or Urban Hopworks (E) , which might be the best given their locations,...

My wife wanted to visit a café of some sort this weekend; unfortunately, I'm not a huge fan of coffee, so my all of Yelp expertise was of little use. Yet one idea did occur to me: the new terminal at PDX is open now...surely there must be a pre-security coffee shop we could visit, right? I mean, come on, this is Portland! Where would we be without at least a Starbucks or a Stumptown on every streetcorner? There had to be some place worth grabbing a cup to jitter the nerves before an even-more nerve-wracking flight, right?

As surmised, there is a coffee shop before the security gate; a couple of them, in fact, including all the repeat offenders I've already mentioned. And we ended up at none of them. Instead, my wife was enamored with the glitz and glamor of the new terminal, and wanted an elevated view of it while sipping a hot cup of...chili. Naturally, we ended up at Loyal Legion!

Without getting too deep into the weeds, I'll summarize our experience here thusly: incredible service, excellent food and drinks, but small-ish portion sizes for the price. You can always expect and airport mark-up, and we were prepared for it, but everything seemed a bit on the anemic side. I had the McLoyal burger (a la carte, as all sandwiches are served, unless you specifically add on side dishes) and a Sazerac cocktail, both of which hit the spot for the savory and bitter notes I usually crave, but if I had my Druthers, each of them would have been a good 20%-30% larger.

My wife did also get her cup of coffee, along with a cup of chili, the combination of which probably would explain why her stomach was unsettled later in the day, but that's her own fault for ingesting such a noxious concoction! Still, each of them was satisfying in their own regard, even if it isn't the most elegant of pairings. Again, the price seemed a little elevated for the quantity presented, in the case of the chili, but not outlandishly so.

Being frequent travelers, my wife and I are very likely to return to PDX in the near-ish future, and Loyal Legion does offer some fantastic fare, but its pre-security location serves as both boon and burden to locals like us: if we're on an outbound flight, it's not spectacular enough to warrant a stop if time is of the essence, and getting through security is a primary objective. Similarly, it's not distinct enough in its offerings to draw us in to an inconvenient place like an airport terminal repeatedly, based solely on its own merits.

Those things said, any casual traveler with time to spare, whether it be a long layover, arriving at the airport earlier than is necessary, or simply taking in the aesthetic of the new terminal, Loyal Legion hits all the marks of a quality pub in a traveler's hub. That alone should earn a legion of loyal customers enough to keep it in its lofty place above...

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Dinner, Date Night, and Runway Rendezvous: A Love Story

Looking for a date night that pairs well with tots and takeoffs? Welcome to the most underrated dinner-and-a-show experience in Portland: Loyal Legion, outside of the TSA checkpoint at PDX.

Yes, it's technically at the airport. No, you don't need a boarding pass. Yes, there are chicken bites that will haunt your dreams in the best way.

We went on a Friday night like the aviation nerds we are, ordered at the bar, and snagged a table by the giant windows to watch planes land like majestic metal whales returning to the sea.

THE VIBES: ✨ Sunset light glinting off airplane fuselages 🛫 Couples whispering, "Is that the 737 MAX or just an Embraer E175?" (Ok, it was just one couple: us 😅) 🐥 Children pointing out Southwest liveries like they're spotting wildlife

THE FOOD: 🍗 Chicken bites = actual chunks of juicy, seasoned breast meat. Not whatever sadness lives in fast food nuggets. 🍔 Burgers = delicious. 🥔 Tots = crispy golden treasure. 😋 Everything is a la carte. So your $10 burger does not come with fries, but your joy is still included.

THE SERVICE: Fast. Friendly. No one judged our giddy Flightradar app usage.

PRO TIP: Go before sunset so you can spot planes and enjoy the sunset-lit aviation theater.

We’ll be back. Next time, we’re bringing binoculars, our Flightradar app, and possibly a ranking system for Most Dramatic Gate Sashay, Most Confusing Paint Job, and Carrier That Most Looks Like It Was Designed In MS Paint. We even played a round of “Guess That Airline” based on tail art alone—some were easy wins, but others had us stumped. One particularly cryptic tail design looked like it had been rendered at 144p, so we dubbed it “Pixelated Air” (aka Volaris) and gave it a solid 9 out of 10 on the Mystery Carrier leaderboard.

Sorry, IKEA—this is our new aviation...