Day Bites To the cafés along the way BY CHUCK ADAMS Growing up on the Pacific Northwest coast, I knew the roadside restaurant as a mainstay of family day trips to Portland, Seattle, Mount St. Helens and campgrounds in between. My memories of these places boil down to no-frills casual dining, usually scarfing down an obscenely large burger with a thick milkshake flavored with local berries. These eateries had names like Clark's, Chuck's, the Elderberry Inn, Hump's, Oney's or the Dairy Maid. My family rarely ate out in town, but once we were on the road, away from Mom's kitchen, the desire for these on-the-way cafés grew exponentially. Alpha-Bit's marionberry-peach pie Still, I'm relatively new to the Willamette Valley, so I have only a few local day trip café stories to tell. One such story came after a weekend backpacking trip with friends up the McKenzie River trail, when the Vida Café served me up the formidable Monster Burger, a half-pound of ground beef topped with melted Swiss and all the fixings. Be warned: The side of home fries is equally gut busting. Waitstaff in establishments like these are typically known for their congeniality, but our host at the Vida was a teenager with enough sass to keep us both appalled and in stitches. When we asked for cream, she turned around and said, "No, you may not." And then we waited. She came back from the kitchen empty handed. We asked her again and she threw her hands up and said, "Fine!" and then, while storming back into the kitchen, said, "You guys are so pushy!" That was it: one cook in the back and this sassy teenager running the place. After a few days of freeze-dried soup and stark wilderness, the Vida Café more than welcomed us back to society. For those who make the long commute to southern Oregon on a semi-regular basis, the options are fairly limited. But the favorite between Eugene and Medford has to be the K-R Drive-In in Rice Hill. So many times I've stopped here and run into friends or friends of friends. We all like to pretend this place is our own little secret, but we're not fooling anybody. If a book were written about the best dive eateries in Oregon, the K-R would top the list. The burger and sandwich menu is nothing to gush about, but no matter: On to that Umpqua Dairy ice cream cone! I queried my fellow staff members for recommendations beyond my shortlist. One staffer mentioned the Gingerbread Village in between Eugene and Florence as a good bet for gingerbread and ice cream. Another named the Green Salmon Coffee Shop in Yachats ("great pastries, awesome drinks, super sandwiches … a lot of community spirit") while other staffers offered "that chowder place" in Mapleton and the Stockade up near Nimrod (long since torn down). But there was one day-trip café that made everybody's list: Alpha-Bit in Mapleton. They raved about the coffee, the tuna salad sandwich and the smoothies. But mostly, they talked about the pie. Being a pie lover, I hit the road and turned my whole theory for this article on its head: The food would be my destination. Anything that happened between here and there would be "on the way." So I pulled into Mapleton in the early afternoon of the Country Fair weekend and found Alpha-Bit to be somewhat deserted. It seems the rush at day-trip cafés is in the early morning (for those in search of a caffeine fix) or late evening (when dusk forces a mass retreat from recreation). Nevertheless, at Alpha-Bit I felt welcome, as any stranger should. I knew exactly what I wanted: a slice of marionberry-peach pie with a scoop of Prince Pückler's vanilla ice cream and a cup of Allann Bros. coffee, a special brew roasted just for Alpha-Bit. I glanced at their menu briefly, read their manifesto on their "intentional community" and noticed they spelled falafel "felafel." Eccentric characters entered, apologized for coming through the back door, said hello, then left. The talk among the two employee-owners dwelled on gambling. For communal, no-frills people, they sure had an interest in scratch-its, Megabucks and other lotteries. Then the pie came. A thick slice, reheated in the oven, with a nice big scoop of ice cream. They used honey instead of sugar in the crust, which gave it a not-too-sweet but savory appeal. The pie, along with the dollar coffee (with as much cream as I liked), formed the perfectly mellow afternoon comfort food that any day tripper needs. Of course, the health of independently owned roadside eateries depends on the choices we make from behind the wheel or handlebars of our vehicle. Sometimes we can't have it our way all the time. Sometimes it's possible beauty can be a snotty waitress with a stick up her ass.      New Specialty Store | Oregon Cheese | Home Style, Delivered | Café Cruisin' | Food Visionaries | Burrito Brilliance | Edgy Brownies |