The flip side of our favorite place for pancakes:
The Pig & Pancake's impressive burger lineup
By Niki Price • Oregon Coast TODAY
There is truth in advertising at the Pig ‘N Pancake restaurants, which dot the coastline from Astoria south to Newport. You can get ham, sausage and bacon, along with pancakes of most every persuasion. Since the first Pig ‘N Pancake was founded by Bob and Marianne Poole in 1961, nobody has thought to add “burgers” to the name. It just wouldn’t ring – but their reputation for hearty hamburgers has been forged all the same.
You can have pancakes for lunch, right? Why not a burger for breakfast? For these family restaurants, it’s all about giving customers what they want.
The Pig N’ Pancake burger starts with a 1/3 pound patty of freshly-ground, choice-grade chuck, layered with traditional toppings like cheddar, pepper jack, Swiss or American cheese. Fresh slices of tomato, crispy lettuce, sliced pickles and sharp red onion are layered on top. Breakfast is served.
“People love to have breakfast here, but sometimes all you want is a burger,” said Zach Poole. “They’re consistently good because we have consistent sources for our meat, and that makes a big difference. We’re good to our suppliers, so they’re good to us.”
A Classic Cheeseburger, with mayo, tomato, lettuce, pickles and a slice of red onion, with a side of fries, soup or salad, is $8.75. They also serve a new Jalapeño Pepper Jack Burger with chipotle mayo, and a Swiss Mushroom Burger, with flavorful Swiss cheese and sautéed mushrooms. Those are both $9.50.
An old-style diner favorite is the Classic Patty Melt, a 1/3-pound patty with grilled onions and Thousand Island dressing, on marbled rye ($8.95).
To go big, order the Pig: Mr. Pig’s Burger is a ½ pound of ground chuck, formed into an oblong patty and served on a grilled French mini-loaf and topped with your choice of cheese ($9.50). They’ll add an extra patty or two slices of crispy bacon for $1.50.
Between the buns, you can also have a grilled, all-natural chicken burger ($8.95), or an Alaskan halibut fillet ($9.50) or even a meatless Garden Burger patty. Or, try one of Poole’s favorites, the Razor Clam Burger, made with hearty razor clams plucked from the sands off the Oregon and Washington coasts. This local favorite, served with fresh tartar sauce and a side dish, is $11.95.
The lunch-when-you-want-it menu has seafood specialties like the Crab & Cheese Melt. The chefs take lumpy, sweet Dungeness crab, and pile it upon toasted English muffins with cheddar cheese. After a quick trip through the broiler, to melt the cheese, the sandwich is served open face on a wide plate with fresh fruit and your choice of sides. Get a half order for $11.95 or a full sandwich for $16.95. Mix it up with a Shrimp & Cheese – half sandwiches of that variety are just $8.25.
Like any self-respecting coastal restaurant, the Pig ‘N Pancake makes beer-battered halibut fish and chips, deep-fried clam strips and fried shrimp, as well as grilled halibut and wild coho salmon platters. They also make hearty seafood “Louie” salads, tossed greens with tomato, olives, hard-boiled eggs and pickles, with your choice of shrimp (starting at $7.95) or Dungeness crab (starting at $11.95).
Seafood splurges aside, sometimes lunch calls for something simple. This menu has crowd-pleasers like the BLT, the French dip and the grilled cheese sandwich. Or, make your own by ordering turkey, ham or roast beef, with your choice of bread or in a tortilla wrap, and a choice of fries, soup or a tossed salad. The half-sandwich deal is $6.50, the whole is $7.95. You can order clam chowder or the soup of the day, and add tossed salad and bread, for around $6.
Small meals like that will save room for dessert. Among the most popular is the Crepe Suzette, with apple, strawberry or blueberry filling, topped with whipped cream or ice cream ($3.95). The Pig ‘N Pancake Blintz is another crepe, wrapped around the restaurant’s own sweet, creamy filling, and topped with berry compote and whipped cream (or ice cream), for $4.50. Marianne’s Special is a thin, crispy Swedish pancake, with Oregon strawberry compote and ice cream ($5.25).
They’re perfect for an early afternoon delight, served with a bottomless cup of the Pig ‘N Pancake’s certified organic, shade-grown, fresh-roasted coffee, for breakfast, snack or lunch. The Pig ‘N Pancake ‘N Burger N’Salad ‘N Blintz? Somehow I doubt that would ever happen. But it would be the yummy truth.
There is truth in advertising at the Pig ‘N Pancake restaurants, which dot the coastline from Astoria south to Newport. You can get ham, sausage and bacon, along with pancakes of most every persuasion. Since the first Pig ‘N Pancake was founded by Bob and Marianne Poole in 1961, nobody has thought to add “burgers” to the name. It just wouldn’t ring – but their reputation for hearty hamburgers has been forged all the same.
You can have pancakes for lunch, right? Why not a burger for breakfast? For these family restaurants, it’s all about giving customers what they want.
The Pig N’ Pancake burger starts with a 1/3 pound patty of freshly-ground, choice-grade chuck, layered with traditional toppings like cheddar, pepper jack, Swiss or American cheese. Fresh slices of tomato, crispy lettuce, sliced pickles and sharp red onion are layered on top. Breakfast is served.
“People love to have breakfast here, but sometimes all you want is a burger,” said Zach Poole. “They’re consistently good because we have consistent sources for our meat, and that makes a big difference. We’re good to our suppliers, so they’re good to us.”
A Classic Cheeseburger, with mayo, tomato, lettuce, pickles and a slice of red onion, with a side of fries, soup or salad, is $8.75. They also serve a new Jalapeño Pepper Jack Burger with chipotle mayo, and a Swiss Mushroom Burger, with flavorful Swiss cheese and sautéed mushrooms. Those are both $9.50.
An old-style diner favorite is the Classic Patty Melt, a 1/3-pound patty with grilled onions and Thousand Island dressing, on marbled rye ($8.95).
To go big, order the Pig: Mr. Pig’s Burger is a ½ pound of ground chuck, formed into an oblong patty and served on a grilled French mini-loaf and topped with your choice of cheese ($9.50). They’ll add an extra patty or two slices of crispy bacon for $1.50.
Between the buns, you can also have a grilled, all-natural chicken burger ($8.95), or an Alaskan halibut fillet ($9.50) or even a meatless Garden Burger patty. Or, try one of Poole’s favorites, the Razor Clam Burger, made with hearty razor clams plucked from the sands off the Oregon and Washington coasts. This local favorite, served with fresh tartar sauce and a side dish, is $11.95.
The lunch-when-you-want-it menu has seafood specialties like the Crab & Cheese Melt. The chefs take lumpy, sweet Dungeness crab, and pile it upon toasted English muffins with cheddar cheese. After a quick trip through the broiler, to melt the cheese, the sandwich is served open face on a wide plate with fresh fruit and your choice of sides. Get a half order for $11.95 or a full sandwich for $16.95. Mix it up with a Shrimp & Cheese – half sandwiches of that variety are just $8.25.
Like any self-respecting coastal restaurant, the Pig ‘N Pancake makes beer-battered halibut fish and chips, deep-fried clam strips and fried shrimp, as well as grilled halibut and wild coho salmon platters. They also make hearty seafood “Louie” salads, tossed greens with tomato, olives, hard-boiled eggs and pickles, with your choice of shrimp (starting at $7.95) or Dungeness crab (starting at $11.95).
Seafood splurges aside, sometimes lunch calls for something simple. This menu has crowd-pleasers like the BLT, the French dip and the grilled cheese sandwich. Or, make your own by ordering turkey, ham or roast beef, with your choice of bread or in a tortilla wrap, and a choice of fries, soup or a tossed salad. The half-sandwich deal is $6.50, the whole is $7.95. You can order clam chowder or the soup of the day, and add tossed salad and bread, for around $6.
Small meals like that will save room for dessert. Among the most popular is the Crepe Suzette, with apple, strawberry or blueberry filling, topped with whipped cream or ice cream ($3.95). The Pig ‘N Pancake Blintz is another crepe, wrapped around the restaurant’s own sweet, creamy filling, and topped with berry compote and whipped cream (or ice cream), for $4.50. Marianne’s Special is a thin, crispy Swedish pancake, with Oregon strawberry compote and ice cream ($5.25).
They’re perfect for an early afternoon delight, served with a bottomless cup of the Pig ‘N Pancake’s certified organic, shade-grown, fresh-roasted coffee, for breakfast, snack or lunch. The Pig ‘N Pancake ‘N Burger N’Salad ‘N Blintz? Somehow I doubt that would ever happen. But it would be the yummy truth.
Oregon Coast Dining: Pig 'N Pancake
Batter up!
Try the definitive pancake, at the Pig
Pig'N Pancake • Newport & Lincoln City
Pancakes are made in so many ways, with so many different grains and with so many added flavors, that they defy easy categorization. They’ve been around as long as humans have eaten grains and cooked with fire. In India, you might find them made with rice flour and lentil beans; in France, they’re made with wheat, ultra-thin and filled with strawberries.
The definition of a pancake is fluid — or batter, to put it more precisely. To make one, you’ll need a dough mixed thin enough to pour, and a hot, flat surface that will bake it quickly. Flip it over, wait a few minutes and you’re on your way, with the circular tabula rasa – or “blank slate” – of world cuisine.
For a quick tour, take a tabula at one of the coast’s Pig ’N Pancake restaurants. In the busy kitchens of these breakfast and lunch eateries, cooks wield five different kinds of batter across 4-foot-wide griddles. Buttermilk, sourdough, crepes, buckwheat, Swedish — each one has its own recipe, prescribed consistency and optimal size. Most of the recipes were worked out half a century ago by company founder Bob Poole, at the original Pig ’N Pancake in Seaside.
“Our buttermilk pancake batter is a top secret recipe, all made from scratch with a few special ingredients. That’s why they turn out so light and fluffy,” said Zach Poole, Bob’s grandson and the manager of Pig ’N Pancake locations in Lincoln City and Newport. “But we also serve them at the appropriate size, or what we think is the appropriate size. The smaller they are, the lighter and fluffier they are. The silver dollar size is perfect.”
Their restaurants’ technique requires that the buttermilk batter be made a few hours in advance, so that the leavening agents — fresh eggs and buttermilk, primarily — have time to interact. The add-ins, including bananas, blueberries and pecans, are added after the batter has been poured onto the griddle.
The Pooles are famous for sourdough pancakes. Although theirs are not made with an ancient starter, prospector style, they have a pleasantly-fermented taste. Less sweet than the buttermilks, the sourdough pancakes are a nice foil to salted breakfast meats like bacon and sausage.
“Sourdough pancakes are my favorite. Well, everything is my favorite, but sourdough pancakes are definitely one of my favorites,” Zach said. “They’re excellent with pigs in a blanket, which is not on the menu but is very good. Ask for it.”
While sourdough and buttermilk pancake batters require special ingredients, crepes are all about technique, and equipment. The classic French crepe batter requires eggs, flour, milk and a little butter, combined into a thin batter. It is ladled onto a well-oiled crepe pan or, as you’ll find in the Pig ’N Pancake kitchens, a steam chamber griddle that offers consistent heat. Each one is made fresh to order, wrapped around a filling and topped with something sweet. They make apple and strawberry crepes, filled with house-made fruit compote and topped with whipped cream and powdered sugar. The strawberry blintzes, made with filling of cottage and cream cheeses with a hint of lemon, and topped with strawberry compote, are good enough for dessert. Another P’n P favorite are the Manhattan Crepes, which are filled with sour cream and served with berry syrup.
“The Manhattan Crepes – that’s a dish that you love or you hate. And if you’re a person who loves them, you’ll go a long way to find one,” Zach said.
The Swedish pancakes (or “Swedes,” in Pig ’N Pancake parlance) have a similar batter, but they are much larger than crepes and take up plenty of valuable griddle real estate. That’s why they can be hard to find outside of specialty pancake houses. They’re poured and smoothed out with a spatula, and then “carved off” the griddle, rolled up loosely on the plate. What makes these cakes stand out, other than their size, is the tart lingonberry sauce, made from fruit imported from Sweden.
“My grandfather found that recipe 50 years ago. They’re my grandmother’s favorite pancake, so they put them on the menu,” Zach said. “They have a good following, for sure. People who eat them a lot know to request them soft, medium or crisp.”
Not all pancakes are light and airy. The Pig ’N Pancake menu offers a buckwheat variety, which is dense and nutty, and a potato pancake, made from fresh shredded spuds and served with applesauce. Add waffle batter, which is yet another variation on the theme, and these cooks become fabulous flippers.
“There’s one thing that makes a big difference to us, as far as consistency goes, and that’s having staff that have been with our restaurants for a long time, and who know what our products should look and taste like. We try to treat our people right, and we end up with employees that stay for a long time. They really know what they are doing back there,” Zach said.
“There are all kinds of pancakes, and people like them lots of different ways. But we hear it all the time. They love our pancakes.”
The central coast Pig ‘N Pancake locations, at 3910 NE Hwy. 101 in Lincoln City and 810 SW Alder in Newport, are open daily from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. There are four others, including the original Pig ’N Pancake, 323 Broadway in Seaside, and restaurants in Cannon Beach, Astoria and Portland. For details, head to pignpancake.com.
Editor’s Note: As a service to readers and participating restaurants, the TODAY keeps archived dining features like this one posted for an extended period of time. Please note that, especially in seasonal markets like the Oregon Coast, hours, menus, and days of operation frequently change, and may no longer match those in place at the time features like this one were first published. We encourage you to phone ahead, or visit these restaurants’ websites, before finalizing your plans. Et, bon apetit!
Try the definitive pancake, at the Pig
Pig'N Pancake • Newport & Lincoln City
Pancakes are made in so many ways, with so many different grains and with so many added flavors, that they defy easy categorization. They’ve been around as long as humans have eaten grains and cooked with fire. In India, you might find them made with rice flour and lentil beans; in France, they’re made with wheat, ultra-thin and filled with strawberries.
The definition of a pancake is fluid — or batter, to put it more precisely. To make one, you’ll need a dough mixed thin enough to pour, and a hot, flat surface that will bake it quickly. Flip it over, wait a few minutes and you’re on your way, with the circular tabula rasa – or “blank slate” – of world cuisine.
For a quick tour, take a tabula at one of the coast’s Pig ’N Pancake restaurants. In the busy kitchens of these breakfast and lunch eateries, cooks wield five different kinds of batter across 4-foot-wide griddles. Buttermilk, sourdough, crepes, buckwheat, Swedish — each one has its own recipe, prescribed consistency and optimal size. Most of the recipes were worked out half a century ago by company founder Bob Poole, at the original Pig ’N Pancake in Seaside.
“Our buttermilk pancake batter is a top secret recipe, all made from scratch with a few special ingredients. That’s why they turn out so light and fluffy,” said Zach Poole, Bob’s grandson and the manager of Pig ’N Pancake locations in Lincoln City and Newport. “But we also serve them at the appropriate size, or what we think is the appropriate size. The smaller they are, the lighter and fluffier they are. The silver dollar size is perfect.”
Their restaurants’ technique requires that the buttermilk batter be made a few hours in advance, so that the leavening agents — fresh eggs and buttermilk, primarily — have time to interact. The add-ins, including bananas, blueberries and pecans, are added after the batter has been poured onto the griddle.
The Pooles are famous for sourdough pancakes. Although theirs are not made with an ancient starter, prospector style, they have a pleasantly-fermented taste. Less sweet than the buttermilks, the sourdough pancakes are a nice foil to salted breakfast meats like bacon and sausage.
“Sourdough pancakes are my favorite. Well, everything is my favorite, but sourdough pancakes are definitely one of my favorites,” Zach said. “They’re excellent with pigs in a blanket, which is not on the menu but is very good. Ask for it.”
While sourdough and buttermilk pancake batters require special ingredients, crepes are all about technique, and equipment. The classic French crepe batter requires eggs, flour, milk and a little butter, combined into a thin batter. It is ladled onto a well-oiled crepe pan or, as you’ll find in the Pig ’N Pancake kitchens, a steam chamber griddle that offers consistent heat. Each one is made fresh to order, wrapped around a filling and topped with something sweet. They make apple and strawberry crepes, filled with house-made fruit compote and topped with whipped cream and powdered sugar. The strawberry blintzes, made with filling of cottage and cream cheeses with a hint of lemon, and topped with strawberry compote, are good enough for dessert. Another P’n P favorite are the Manhattan Crepes, which are filled with sour cream and served with berry syrup.
“The Manhattan Crepes – that’s a dish that you love or you hate. And if you’re a person who loves them, you’ll go a long way to find one,” Zach said.
The Swedish pancakes (or “Swedes,” in Pig ’N Pancake parlance) have a similar batter, but they are much larger than crepes and take up plenty of valuable griddle real estate. That’s why they can be hard to find outside of specialty pancake houses. They’re poured and smoothed out with a spatula, and then “carved off” the griddle, rolled up loosely on the plate. What makes these cakes stand out, other than their size, is the tart lingonberry sauce, made from fruit imported from Sweden.
“My grandfather found that recipe 50 years ago. They’re my grandmother’s favorite pancake, so they put them on the menu,” Zach said. “They have a good following, for sure. People who eat them a lot know to request them soft, medium or crisp.”
Not all pancakes are light and airy. The Pig ’N Pancake menu offers a buckwheat variety, which is dense and nutty, and a potato pancake, made from fresh shredded spuds and served with applesauce. Add waffle batter, which is yet another variation on the theme, and these cooks become fabulous flippers.
“There’s one thing that makes a big difference to us, as far as consistency goes, and that’s having staff that have been with our restaurants for a long time, and who know what our products should look and taste like. We try to treat our people right, and we end up with employees that stay for a long time. They really know what they are doing back there,” Zach said.
“There are all kinds of pancakes, and people like them lots of different ways. But we hear it all the time. They love our pancakes.”
The central coast Pig ‘N Pancake locations, at 3910 NE Hwy. 101 in Lincoln City and 810 SW Alder in Newport, are open daily from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. There are four others, including the original Pig ’N Pancake, 323 Broadway in Seaside, and restaurants in Cannon Beach, Astoria and Portland. For details, head to pignpancake.com.
Editor’s Note: As a service to readers and participating restaurants, the TODAY keeps archived dining features like this one posted for an extended period of time. Please note that, especially in seasonal markets like the Oregon Coast, hours, menus, and days of operation frequently change, and may no longer match those in place at the time features like this one were first published. We encourage you to phone ahead, or visit these restaurants’ websites, before finalizing your plans. Et, bon apetit!
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