Fuller's Coffee Shop
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Fuller's Coffee Shop is a
diner A diner is a type of restaurant found across the United States and Canada, as well as parts of Western Europe and Australia. Diners offer a wide range of cuisine, mostly American cuisine, a casual atmosphere, and, characteristically, a comb ...
serving standard
American cuisine American cuisine consists of the cooking style and traditional dishes prepared in the United States. It has been significantly influenced by Europeans, Indigenous Americans, Africans, Latin Americans, Asians, Pacific Islanders, and many other ...
in
Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...
's
Pearl District The Pearl District is an area of Portland, Oregon, formerly occupied by warehouses, light industry and railroad classification yards and now noted for its art galleries, upscale businesses and residences. The area has been undergoing significa ...
, in the United States. Established in 1947, the restaurant has operated from its location in
downtown Portland Downtown Portland is the central business district of Portland, Oregon, United States. It is on the west bank of the Willamette River in the northeastern corner of the southwest section of the city and where most of the city's high-rise buildi ...
since 1960. It serves breakfast all day, and the menu features a
cheeseburger A cheeseburger is a hamburger with one or more slices of melted cheese on top of the meat patty, added near the end of the cooking time. Cheeseburgers can include variations in structure, ingredients and composition. As with other hamburgers, ...
with a recipe that has not changed since the diner's establishment. Described as a
greasy spoon A greasy spoon is a small, cheap restaurant typically specializing in Short order cooking, short order fare. The term is also used in the UK–along with the informal term "caff" for café–to refer to a small privately-owned eatery that tradi ...
, Fuller's has received a generally positive reception, and appeared in an episode of the television series ''
Grimm Grimm may refer to: People * Grimm (surname) * Brothers Grimm, German linguists ** Jacob Grimm (1785–1863), German philologist, jurist and mythologist ** Wilhelm Grimm (1786–1859), German author, the younger of the Brothers Grimm * Christia ...
'' in 2017. Founded by Jack Fuller, the diner was later owned by his son John then by Urban Restaurant Group.


Description

Fuller's Coffee Shop is a
diner A diner is a type of restaurant found across the United States and Canada, as well as parts of Western Europe and Australia. Diners offer a wide range of cuisine, mostly American cuisine, a casual atmosphere, and, characteristically, a comb ...
serving
American cuisine American cuisine consists of the cooking style and traditional dishes prepared in the United States. It has been significantly influenced by Europeans, Indigenous Americans, Africans, Latin Americans, Asians, Pacific Islanders, and many other ...
at the intersection of 9th Avenue and Davis Street in
northwest Portland Northwest Portland is one of the sextants of Portland, Oregon, United States. Northwest Portland includes the Pearl District, most of Old Town Chinatown, the Northwest District, and various residential and industrial neighborhoods. A range of ...
's
Pearl District The Pearl District is an area of Portland, Oregon, formerly occupied by warehouses, light industry and railroad classification yards and now noted for its art galleries, upscale businesses and residences. The area has been undergoing significa ...
. The restaurant has a "meandering" M-shaped
Formica ''Formica'' is a genus of ants of the subfamily Formicinae, including species commonly known as wood ants, mound ants, thatching ants, and field ants. ''Formica'' is the type genus of the Formicidae, and of the subfamily Formicinae. The type ...
counter with "classic" swiveling chrome stools and
linoleum Linoleum is a floor covering made from materials such as solidified linseed oil (linoxyn), Pine Resin, pine resin, ground Cork (material), cork dust, sawdust, and mineral fillers such as calcium carbonate, most commonly on a Hessian fabric, hes ...
floors, a neon clock, plain silverware, and paper napkins. ''
Thrillist ''Thrillist'' is an online media website covering travel. ''Thrillist'' was founded in 2004 by Ben Lerer and Adam Rich. In October 2016, Thrillist merged with internet brands ''The Dodo'', NowThis News, and Seeker to form the digital media ...
'' called Fuller's a "surprisingly blue-collar counter operation" with "friendly, mostly older" staff. ''
Willamette Week ''Willamette Week'' (''WW'') is an alternative weekly newspaper and a website published in Portland, Oregon, United States, since 1974. It features reports on local news, politics, sports, business, and culture. History Early history '' ...
'' said the "always-packed"
greasy spoon A greasy spoon is a small, cheap restaurant typically specializing in Short order cooking, short order fare. The term is also used in the UK–along with the informal term "caff" for café–to refer to a small privately-owned eatery that tradi ...
's "old-timey charm comes from a combination of its zigzagging lunch-counter setup, the endearingly labyrinthine menu and its incredible lowball prices". ''
Portland Mercury ''Portland Mercury'' is an alternative bi-weekly newspaper and media company founded in 2000 in Portland, Oregon. It has a sibling publication in Seattle, Washington, called '' The Stranger''. History A prior version of ''The Mercury'' was ...
'' Megan Burbank said that Fuller's is "one of those ageless, no-frills diners that seem to have been transported from the East Coast, legit diner counter and perfect comfort-food menu intact". Julie Lee of ''
1859 Events January–March * January 21 – José Mariano Salas (1797–1867) becomes Conservative interim President of Mexico. * January 24 ( O. S.) – Under the rule of Alexandru Ioan Cuza, the provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia are uni ...
'' called the diner an "old-school counter service haunt, specializing in gigantic omelets and food you don't want to make at home when it's hot out". ''Oregon ArtsWatch'' Bob Hicks described Fuller's as a "genuine old-line breakfast-and-lunch diner with a hustle-bustle attitude and a brisk zigzag of counter stools".


Menu

The diner serves breakfast all day. The menu includes chili burgers,
corned beef Corned beef, called salted beef in some Commonwealth countries, is a salt-cured brisket of beef. The term comes from the treatment of the meat with large-grained rock salt, also called "corns" of salt. Sometimes, sugar and spices are added to ...
hash Hash, hashes, hash mark, or hashing may refer to: Substances * Hash (food), a coarse mixture of ingredients, often based on minced meat * Hash (stew), a pork and onion-based gravy found in South Carolina * Hash, a nickname for hashish, a canna ...
,
chicken fried steak Chicken-fried steak, also known as country-fried steak, is an American Southern breaded cutlet dish consisting of a piece of beefsteak (most often tenderized cube steak) coated with seasoned flour and either deep-fried or pan-fried. It is a ...
,
pigs in a blanket In the United States, pigs in a blanket are small hot dogs or other sausages individually wrapped in pastry. It is commonly served as an appetizer. Ingredients and preparation In the United States the term "pigs in a blanket" typically refer ...
,
French toast French toast is a Dish (food), dish of sliced bread soaked in beaten eggs as food, eggs and often milk or cream, then pan-fried. Alternative names and variants include eggy bread, Bombay toast, gypsy toast, and poor knights (of Windsor).''Oxfo ...
,
eggs An egg is an organic vessel in which an embryo begins to develop. Egg, EGG or eggs may also refer to: Biology * Egg cell, the female reproductive cell (gamete) in oogamous organisms Food * Eggs as food Places * Egg, Austria * Egg, Switzerland ...
and
omelets An omelette (sometimes omelet in American English; see American and British English spelling differences#Miscellaneous spelling differences, spelling differences) is a dish (food), dish made from egg (food), eggs (usually chicken eggs), Frying, ...
, fried razor clams,
hash browns Hash browns, also spelled hashed browns and hashbrowns, are a popular American breakfast food consisting of finely julienned potatoes that have been fried until golden brown. Hash browns are a staple breakfast item at diners in North America, w ...
,
bacon Bacon is a type of Curing (food preservation), salt-cured pork made from various cuts of meat, cuts, typically the pork belly, belly or less fatty parts of the back. It is eaten as a side dish (particularly in breakfasts), used as a central in ...
,
cinnamon roll A cinnamon roll (also known as cinnamon bun, cinnamon swirl, cinnamon scroll, cinnamon Danish and cinnamon snail) is a sweet roll commonly served in Northern Europe (mainly in Nordic countries, but also in Austria, Estonia, The Netherlands and ...
s, and toast made from homemade bread. The breakfast special is a
pancake A pancake, also known as a hotcake, griddlecake, or flapjack, is a flat type of batter bread like cake, often thin and round, prepared from a starch-based Batter (cooking), batter that may contain eggs, milk, and butter, and then cooked on a ...
, an egg, and two pieces of bacon. Sandwich options include
cheese Cheese is a type of dairy product produced in a range of flavors, textures, and forms by coagulation of the milk protein casein. It comprises proteins and fat from milk (usually the milk of cows, buffalo, goats or sheep). During prod ...
,
egg salad Egg salad is a dish consisting of chopped hard-boiled or scrambled eggs, mustard, and mayonnaise, and vegetables often including other ingredients such as celery. It is made mixed with seasonings in the form of herbs, spices and other ingredi ...
,
French dip A French dip sandwich, also known as a beef dip, is a hot sandwich consisting of thinly sliced roast beef (or, sometimes, other meats) on a "French roll" or baguette. It is usually served plain but a popular variation is to top with Swiss chee ...
,
ham Ham is pork from a leg cut that has been preserved by wet or dry curing, with or without smoking."Bacon: Bacon and Ham Curing" in '' Chambers's Encyclopædia''. London: George Newnes, 1961, Vol. 2, p. 39. As a processed meat, the term '' ...
, and Monte Cristo. The lunch menu also has beef and
mashed potato Mashed potato or mashed potatoes ( American, Canadian, and Australian English), colloquially known as mash (British English), is a dish made by mashing boiled or steamed potatoes, usually with added milk, butter, salt, and pepper. It is general ...
es with gravy,
sloppy Joe A sloppy joe is a sandwich consisting of ground meat (typically beef), onions, tomato sauce or ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and other seasonings served on a hamburger bun. There are several theories about the sandwich's origin. History ...
s, salmon steaks,
fish and chips Fish and chips is a hot dish consisting of batter (cooking), battered and fried fish, served with French fries, chips. Often considered the national dish of the United Kingdom, fish and chips originated in England in the 19th century. Today, ...
, fried oysters, French fries, and coleslaw. The restaurant's
cheeseburger A cheeseburger is a hamburger with one or more slices of melted cheese on top of the meat patty, added near the end of the cooking time. Cheeseburgers can include variations in structure, ingredients and composition. As with other hamburgers, ...
has been described as a menu "fixture", with a recipe unchanged since 1947. According to an employee, the "secret" ingredients in the burger's sauce include mayonnaise, ketchup, Cayenne pepper, cayenne, curry powder, and white pepper, along with three additional "exotic" spices. The cheeseburger, two thin patties between sesame seed buns, served with lettuce, pickles, American cheese, became the "star attraction and raison d'etre" of Fuller's Burger Shack, a sister restaurant operated by a local restaurant group.


History

Fuller's opened in Northeast Portland, Oregon, northeast Portland in 1947. It was named after its founder, Jack Fuller. The diner relocated to its current location in the Pearl District in 1960. In 1979, the diner was passed down to John Fuller, the founder's son. In 2017, Fuller's appeared in "The Seven Year Itch (Grimm), The Seven Year Itch", the fifth episode of the Grimm (season 6), sixth season of the American drama television series ''
Grimm Grimm may refer to: People * Grimm (surname) * Brothers Grimm, German linguists ** Jacob Grimm (1785–1863), German philologist, jurist and mythologist ** Wilhelm Grimm (1786–1859), German author, the younger of the Brothers Grimm * Christia ...
''. Fuller's was acquired by the Urban Restaurant Group, a local enterprise that also owns Brix Tavern, Swank and Swine, and several other establishments in Portland, in 2019. During the COVID-19 pandemic in Portland, Oregon, COVID-19 pandemic, Fuller's offered takeout service. In February 2023, a fire forced the restaurant to close temporarily for repairs. The business had hoped to reopen in June 2023, then October 2023; it ultimately opened on November 8, 2023.


Reception

For ''Roadfood'', Jane and Michael Stern rated the diner 4.5 out of 5 stars and wrote, "Off the tourist path but loved by locals, Fuller's is not only prime Portland; it is a taste of the sort of high-quality urban hash house now nearly vanished from most American cities." In 2016, ''Willamette Week'' recommended the breakfast special and said, "Take one step in Fuller's, and you'll feel like you're back in 1947". The newspaper's Walker MacMurdo wrote, "You'll be hard-pressed to find a breakfast this big and this good at this price anywhere else on the westside, let alone in the rest of the city. In an area that has developed into a jungle of Chipotle-wave décor, millennial apartment complexes and elite boutiques, Fuller's remains a deservedly popular bastion of a bygone time when elderly men in overalls could enjoy a glass of milk with their omelet." ''Portland Mercury'' Megan Burbank wrote in 2017: ''The Oregonian'' Michael Russell has described the cheeseburger as "what a McDonald's burger might still look like if the global corporation hadn't been worrying about shareholders for the past five decades". He included Fuller's in his 2018–2020 overviews of the city's "best inexpensive restaurants". Russell called Fuller's "the best of Portland's classic diners", and also included the diner in his 2019 guide to the city's best brunches. Lizzy Acker and Russell ranked Fuller's number 21 in a 2019 list of the city's best corned beef hashes, and said, "The food is good, the prices are hard to beat, but it's the old-school ambiance and friendly (but not overly friendly) service that keep us coming back to Fuller's." In 2018, ''Food & Wine'' David Landsel also said that the diner appears "out of a Hopper painting" and called the omelettes "pretty great". His 2020 overview of the nation's best diners described Fuller's as an "alluring corner joint where each seat in the restaurant is a counter seat, backed by giant windows that even on the darkest days, lend Portland's finest no-nonsense diner an abundance of natural light. Classic it may be, but there's a distinctive creativity to the menu here, nearly essential in a town where breakfast and brunch are essentially a new kind of religion". Landsel recommended that diners "try the indulgent Monte Cristo sandwich, or simply appreciate just how good a plate of bacon, eggs, and potatoes can be, when someone back behind the counter gives a damn about quality. Other breakfasts may be more famous, but let them wait for another day—at Fuller's, chances are you won't feel like you're missing out, at all." ''Eater (website), Eater Portland'' Erin DeJesus included Fuller's in her 2013 list of the twelve "best restaurants for dining solo" in the city, in which she said that the diner "maintains that old-school, every-man-for-himself vibe" and recommended a visit "for morning/lunchtime solo diners (or those who bury themselves in the newspaper when eating alone)". In a 2016 list of "Portland's 12 Iconic Greasy Spoon Breakfasts", the website said, "Fuller's isn't old-fashioned; it's just old... The food is so basic you really could cook it at home, but the ambience and shared conversation around the counter makes you glad something so old has survived in this part of town." For ''Eater Portland'' 2020 list of "17 Old-School Restaurants Every Portlander Must Try", Heather Arndt Anderson and Krista Garcia described Fuller's as a "Pearl District holdout" with "a lunch counter in the true sense of the word". In 2019, Bob Hicks of ''Oregon ArtsWatch'' described Fuller's as a "pillar of a rapidly changing community" and wrote, "to the city's developers and speculators I have just three words: Hands off, dammit." During the COVID-19 pandemic, ''Eater Portland'' published a list of "real-deal" and "essential breakfasts that hold their own for takeout and delivery", in which Kara Stokes and Brooke Jackson-Glidden identified select takeout options and said of the diner, "When breakfast calls for no more than greasy spoon simplicity and endless coffee refills, there's nothing like Fuller's". Fuller's Burger Shack's entrée ranked number seven in ''Portland Monthly'' 2020 list of the city's 20 best cheeseburgers; comparing the cheeseburger to the version served at Fuller's Coffee Shop, writers for the magazine said that "the Burger Shack version is a hair better than the coffee shop original. What we loved: the warm creaminess, the perfect proportions, the luscious char, the splendid crunch of whole iceberg leaves, the way the cheese pooled over the edges". ''
Thrillist ''Thrillist'' is an online media website covering travel. ''Thrillist'' was founded in 2004 by Ben Lerer and Adam Rich. In October 2016, Thrillist merged with internet brands ''The Dodo'', NowThis News, and Seeker to form the digital media ...
'' said that the diner feels "like something you'd find on the way out of town, not a couple minutes from what people don't actually call Portland's financial district (even though it's true). The food is cheap but delicious. It's not trying to be anything other than a place for properly cooked eggs, crispy hash browns, and a seemingly never-ending cup of hot coffee." ''Fodor's Inside Portland'' (2020) described Fuller's as a "reliably good greasy spoon" with an "endearing" neon sign.


See also

* List of diners


References


External links

* * * {{Restaurants in Portland, Oregon 1947 establishments in Oregon Diners in Portland, Oregon Restaurants established in 1947 Restaurants in Pearl District, Portland, Oregon