Coast River Business Journal

A new restaurant at the corner of Pacific Way and U.S. Highway 101 in Gearhart provides customers with a trip down memory lane while leaving their stomachs full, and their wallets too.

Gearhart Junction Café is a 1950s-style American diner serving breakfast, lunch and dinner with nothing on the menu for over $10. Menu items include homemade biscuits, fresh ground chuck burgers, hand-dipped milkshakes, beer-battered fish-n-chips, open-faced prime rib sandwiches and bread pudding made with an old family recipe.

"The concept is good food and good drinks at a reasonable price," said Patrick Merrill, who opened the business with his wife, Lee. "We want this to be a place where locals can come hangout in a relaxing and fun environment."

The idea of a nostalgic-themed establishment is two-fold. One, the restaurant is located in the Pacific Way Junction Building, which used to be the Oregon Trail Trading Post in the 1950s. The building was located across the street from the Gearhart train depot and housed the Cobra Gardens, an old tourism hotspot.

"We wanted a nostalgic concept because of what this corner meant to the community back then," he said.

The second reason Merrill decided to have a 50s-style American diner was to honor his father, who owned a small café in Hillsboro for 29 years.

"I grew up working in the café and really liked the sense of community within it," he said. "This establishment is meant to pay tribute to an era when things were a little simpler."

Merrill shows respect for the era by adorning the walls with enlarged, black-and-white photos of Merrill and his family in the old café. He also includes an enlarged picture of the Oregon Trail Trading Post circa 1950.

His experience in the restaurant industry didn’t stop with the family café. Merrill worked for a chain of restaurants in Kansas, where he met his wife. After getting married and leaving the corporate world, Patrick and Lee opened two family-friendly sports bars in Wichita, Kan. They ran the establishments until deciding to move to the Oregon coast.

"I brought her (Lee) to Cannon Beach one time about nine years ago and she knew instantly where she wanted to live, so we moved out here," he said.

The new restaurant occupies 5,100 sq. ft. of space in suites D and E of the Pacific Way Junction Building. It has an open kitchen with bar seating, booths, tables, a lounge and three flat-screen televisions for sporting events and other special occasions. Merrill is also hoping to add video lottery in the not-so-distant future.

So, why start a business in this economy?

"A lot of people are telling me that opening a restaurant right now isn’t the right thing to do," he said. "But we want to be part of the solution, not the problem. Quality food for reasonable prices is a solution in this economy."