Coyote Joe's — Restaurant in Willamina

Update to my first review

Austin came through for us once again. I'm in town visiting friends and family and we had some unexpected guests arrive a bit later in the evening yesterday and we were running short on dinner options. We called Austin, the owner, and he happily stayed open late to accommodate our larger party and we were treated to another great meal with great service.

Okay, so this will be a rather unique review of a restaurant in Timbertown USA Willamina, Oregon. I won't focus much on the food, as it has less to do about why you should try this place out as is the atmosphere and vibe of the place.

I stumbled upon this plas as I was on a bike ride and the name Coyote Joe's stood out as a place anyone and everyone should a the very least step inside to see that is up. Since it was early morning and they weren't open yet I decided to make plans dinner plans for that evening. I was with a party of five and when we stepped in we're we're all very intrigued as we immediately began talking about the place.

A carved wooden coyote greets you upon entering the restaurant that I assume is could be construed as a mascot. The walls are covered in some of the most old fashioned looking wall paper I haven't seen since I was a child watch perhaps a rerun of little house on the prairie, or any other show that takes place in some sort of idea of what an old fashioned grandma's house might look like. The wooden chairs at each table have that classic old fashioned pattern pressed into them and all of the chairs are like this. I didn't even realize this many of these style of chairs could ever be assembled at one location. Haha. The blue plaid table cloths on each table, to the eccentric and eclectic choice of paintings and art that worked the wall all as to the ambience. Apparently my party and I had arrived about an hour before close and about a half hour after the dinner rush had all left so I'm curious what the place feels like during it's typical busy times.

Something else very noteworthy is that at the time of this writing the place has been under new ownership for a total of 7 days. It is now owned by a very friendly and personable, 21 year old gentleman. He came over and introduced himself to us and answered all of our questions about him and the place. He informed us that he wanted to make sure that a local institution remained open and successful as it has a very loyal staff working there, many of them whom have been there for over two decades.

Okay I should at least mention the food. Several orders of taco salad were ordered and were large and housed in a freshly fried tortilla shell. I ordered the liver and onions, as it has been a bucket list of mine to see what it tastes like. It tasted just as I expected haha. (I don't like liver in general, but I ate it all since liver is a very healthy thing to eat). I also ordered a hamburger called the Hobo which features a fried egg on top of probably at least a 1/3 lb patty joined with cheese, bacon, ham, lettuce, tomato, and onion. They offer some very tasty dessert options ranging from oversized peanut butter cookies and chocolate chip cookies, and small individual pies of all sorts.

Come for the novelty of the location, ambience, and story of the place. Don't put too much emphasis on the quality of the main meal, but do get a cookie or any other dessert and be very happy that you experienced...

I am usually not a reviewer, like ever, however I need to discuss this event: A family member of mine, called D, and myself went to this restaurant for lunch, we had spent the morning in Lincoln City hiking, and were famished, Lincoln City is not an extremely far drive for us and we do it fairly often, however we don't stop in Willimina very often, if ever, and we won't ever be returning. D and I got seated by a wonderful front of house worker, who was running around due to it being pretty busy, but regardless she took time to chat with us and was kind. D and I were sharing a chocolate chip cookie (which was a good cookie I will say) and an older man, without a mask on, came to take our order. He asked if we were ready to order, and that he'll start with drinks, well D looked at me and said "I think we are ready to order food, actually"(in a polite tone I will add, D doesn't have have a mean bone) and this waiter simply exploded at D. He loudly said "I will start with DRINKS!" broadcasting the last word, making everyone turn their heads in our direction, D is also very hard of hearing and we had already had some issues with this waiter not accomodating in ways like speaking slower, and more clearly(this person had no accent, just not enough diction) and rather speaking at D like they're stupid. Luckily we were able to pay and leave without ordering anything else because D was about to start sobbing, they were extremely embarrassed as everyone stared at us as the waiter practically used a megaphone in our ears.

I'm not saying that our waiter couldn't not have had us wait to place our food orders but the approach was terribly inappropriate and extremely rude. D and I are always as kind as we can be to everyone we meet(you never know what type of day someone is having) and this ruined our day, with that I ask for you to please fix this, no one deserves to be yelled at especially when there are so many other ways this could have been handled without belittling another human, such as: -"I can just take your drink orders right now, but I will be back to take your food orders soon" -"I have to grab a couple of other people's drink orders first before I put in food orders, one moment." "I can only grab drink orders right now, so what would you...

I walk using a walker and I walked up to the doors of Coyote Joe's and was pleasantly surprised to find the two doors I had to go through were nice and lite! So, kudos go to Coyote Joe's for being handicap friendly. They even had handicap parking right by the front door! I was greeted right away by the waitress, I always like being greeted right away, it makes me feel important. The waitress sat me at a table in the back of the room that way my walker wouldn't be in the way. Which was fine by me. She came back to the table with a menu and left it for me. The decor of Coyote Joe's was so rugged looking, just perfect for a place named Coyote Joe's, it had a western theme going on. I took my time looking over my menu and decided on a chefs salad because it was a hot day. The waitress asked if id like anything to drink and I said yes water, please. She asked me if I knew what I wanted and I said yes, and ordered a chef salad. The waitress said it shouldn't take to long and she'd be right out with it. The place wasn't to busy. Before too long the waitress brought me my chefs, salad. I ate and read from a book I had brought with me. The chef's salad was so big I had to ask for a to-go box. Their menu wasn't too expensive and they serve beer in their restaurant. If you want great customer service and good food then make sure you stop at Coyote Joe's if you find yourself in...