Shari's Cafe And Pies - Jennings Lodge

Rediscovering my love for breakfast at Shari. I love the traditional breakfast with egg, bacon, toast , and hashbrown.

Staff is great! The food was good but there was nothing to write home about.

Where do I start? Most of us are plenty familiar with Shari's . . they've been around a long time. Unfortunately, many of the changes over the years have mostly not been good ones . . although, I will name at least a couple improvements. Firstly . . I think it's fair to say that in the begining and for many years after that this was a decent, midrange, 24 hour American food restaurant with many solid, tastey classics that were affordable and featured what seemed to be yummy homemade style pies that for a long time, people believed were made there. Dislikes: The pies are actually not made there. Sevice and cleanliness have been declining. You may have noticed that they keep updating and gentrifying their menu as an excuse to charge more, with more fufu choices and trimmings yet while eliminating American classics like the chili burger, over charging for a cup or bowl of soup . . or the expensive for what you get, classic soup and (half sandwich) combo. How money grabbing is that!? Many of the locations are no longer 24 hour. For a time . . they tried to pass off what looked and tasted much more like a giant, dry dinner roll as an actual cinnamon roll . . Unlike places that actually make the amazing, drippy, sweet gooey goodness of a genuine cinnamon roll . . Shari's went corporate cheap on this one and were very sparing with all the sweet surgary cinnamon goo that actually makes a cinnamon roll so delicious. Insulting actually to customers . . because it was such a cheap immitation of a cinnamon roll. On the positive side . . although overpriced for it's size . . the Marionberry Cheesecake is absolutely heavenly. The actual piece that you get tho, is likely the most tiny piece of pie you will ever get. I also highly recomend the absolutely delish tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwich combo. The tomato soup used to be available only on Wednesdays but they got smart and offer it every day now. I really wish they would go back to focusing more on traditional American food and lower the prices back down a bit. I don't go there much, anymore, unfortunately.

Food is so good! Employees helpful and friendly. Place could use some patching on booth benches. Clean and well lighted.

Very underrated. It is fairly standard no frills fare, but given the insanity of portlanders standing in cold rain for an hour for eggs and toast, a far better option.