Seaside, Oregon – Line Dancing And Dooger’s

I’ve learned that everyone you meet deserves to be greeted with a smile.  It makes their day and mine too.

Some RV parks offer breakfast or special meals during high season at their location.  Sometimes the portions are large but most of the time they aren’t.  Sometimes the price is very reasonable and sometimes the prices are way too much for what you get.  This past weekend we opted to have breakfast at the Sand Dollar Café located in the Seaside Thousand Trails park.  Take a look at the omelet I ordered.  Just take a look at it!  I can actually say I don’t ever remember having an omelet this big or loaded with this many tomatoes.  Have you?   I think the cook put the whole row of tomatoes in the omelet.   The price was right but do you think I’ll order it again?

Thousand Trails' Sand Dollar Cafe

After breakfast we wanted to take a short little drive to Ocean Vista Way.  We hadn’t scoped out that area of this little seaside town yet.  We had an hour to waste before the manager’s meeting at the RV park so figured that was just about all the time we needed.  It was early.  The beach wasn’t busy yet but it would soon be.  After all, the weather was gorgeous and it was a holiday weekend.

Some of the beaches have rocky entrances and others are sandy.  Obviously, we prefer to walk on the sand instead of rocks.   In this area you definitely wanted to have your shoes on.

Saturday was also the day we decided to have our first line dancing lesson.  Actually, it wasn’t our fault.  We didn’t come up with this idea on our own.  We met some folks at the Thousand Trails manager’s meeting.  They convinced us to join them.  It was their fault.  We weren’t good. We weren’t good at all.  With three dances to learn at our first beginner’s lesson, we figured by the following morning we’d forget all of them.

Dooger’s Restaurant is a pretty popular restaurant around here.  They have four of them within about 75 miles.  The clam chowder  has been featured in Bon Appetit.  We have now visited all four of their restaurants.  (I think they only have four.)  We had our first taste of their clam chowder and oyster stew at the Long Beach location a couple years ago.  Then, last year we tried it again at Cannon Beach.

Oyster Stew at the Seaside Dooger's.

The other day I read a blog from someone who commented on cold and overpriced food at Dooger’s Restaurant.  We had received nothing but good food and service at that chain in the past and wondered if it had changed.  The overpriced part really doesn't count.  We all know the prices before we order and if they're overpriced, we can walk out.  We've walked out after looking at menus in the past either because we didn't like what was on it or didn't like the prices.  I'm sure we'll do it again in the future too. 

Clam Chowder at Warrenton

Thus, we set our goal to trying the other two Dooger’s we had yet to visit.  The last two were both within about 15 miles of each other.  Saturday we went to the Dooger’s in Seaside and Sunday we visited the Warrenton location.

Seaside's lite portion of fish and chips

Oyster stew again at Warrenton

Everything was fantastic at these Dooger restaurants including the food, and the service.  Oyster stew isn’t printed on the menu but they will make it especially for you.  Guess what Terry ordered at both restaurants. 

Oops … there was one thing we did not enjoy at the Warrenton location.  It was some of the parents (not the kids) at the restaurant.  However, you’ve got to remember that this was the 4th of July weekend and everybody and their brother (in this case, brother’s kids) were at the coast.  Kids were blowing straw wrappers, crying, screaming, running, crawling on the floor and the list goes on.  Did you get the picture? That kind of takes away from the enjoyment of a meal out for just about everyone else at the restaurant.  Well, maybe not for everyone but it certainly did for us.

Sorry for all the food shots.  However, we’ve spent a lot of time eating this weekend.  Anyone know how to send taste samples with a blog?