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BreakfastGuy on Jul 7th 2008
Fat City Cafe
Categories: Mom & Pop/Old School
Feel: In a small town, a long, long time ago . . .
7820 Southwest Capitol Highway, Portland (SW: Outer)
503-245-5457
6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. every day; breakfast served all day
Typical Meal with coffee and tip: $8-11 (Cash, Visa, MasterCard)
Here’s how you do a Breakfast with the Fellas. You meet too damn early on a weekday, ‘cause fellas have to work. You can’t meet on a weekend, because fellas have to sleep. You show up on time so you can give a load of crap to the guy who shows up late (generally the single/unemployed one) with lines like “Oh, you decided to join us” or “Good gosh, they’ll let anybody in here.” You say something about not being awake until you’ve had your coffee. You order something with eggs and meat, or explain why, and for the most part you get the same thing you always get, or explain why. Any mention of an attempt at weight loss is completely understood and thoroughly ridiculed.
Most important, you don’t go to some place that has candles on the tables, or bistro in the name, or Asiago cheese. You go to a place like the Fat City Cafe.
Ponder the name for a moment: Fat City. Every time I’ve been there, the special on the chalkboard was some kind of sausage: Italian, Cajun, Spicy, Smoked. The spicy sausage is precisely that, and a guy can earn points for eating it without complaint. In the fall the place goes nuts and has pumpkin pancakes. I think there’s only about a dozen ingredients in the kitchen, and the whole menu is variations on them. For example, the menu includes omelets, scrambles, and sizzles, and the only difference is consistency and egg-to-potato ratio. The bacon is crisp, the coffee never stops coming, and the waitresses work hard, do a great job, and take no slack.
I eat there with Bob, Phil, and Mick, and one time I told the waitress that we don’t hang out with guys who have two syllables in their names. Phil and Mick always get the hash, Bob gets the two eggs with links, and I get the Fat City Sizzle, which sounds like it’s from a Simpsons episode but is actually a pile of hashbrowns, ham, green peppers, onions, and cheddar with two eggs on top. It’s so big it looks like it may have been served with a shovel, and it comes with either a pancake or toast on the side. Carbs schmarbs.
The décor of the place isn’t exactly American Guy, but it works. Kind of a road theme, with old signs and license plates stuck up on the wall, plus seasonal decorations and Fat City T-shirts. The bathroom is Pure American Goofy: a super-narrow door between the counter (which is always filled with fellas) and the kitchen, and once you’re in you can’t even take a step forward before you have to turn right for the barely-bigger-than-the-toilet room. Fellas gotta stand next to the sink to pee, and ladies probably have to put their legs under it to sit down.
If the place looks like it’s old and in a small town, it is. Multnomah Village dates to the 1910s, when a community sprang up around an Oregon Electric Railroad station. Today, the Village itself is much more Lady Habitat, with shops and bookstores and whatnot; it’s often called quaint.
On your way back to your table, you might notice an Oregonian article on the wall: the account of the 1987 Fat City Firing, perhaps the ultimate Breakfast with the Fellas Gone Wrong. In this very booth, the mayor of Portland, Bud Clark, the ultimate fella himself who came out of nowhere to get elected mayor, fired his police chief, Jim Davis. There was some legal issue being discussed, and apparently Davis’s assertion that “Read my lips: Yes I can” was met with Clark’s witty retort, “Read my lips: You’re fired.”
I mean, where else would two fellas who needed to talk some stuff out go for breakfast? It wasn’t the Alameda Ass-Kicking, was it? Or the Bread and Ink Bashing? Tin Shed Tanking?
Nope. It was the . . . read my lips: Fat. City. Firing. Mmmmmm.
Wait: Medium on weekends, mostly outside.
Seating: Half a dozen booths, a couple of tables, and a counter. Large groups: Not at the same table.
Portion Size: Heapin’. Changes: Yes, and splits available with an extra plate of hashbrowns for $1.50.
Coffee: Standard Diner. Other drinks: Tea.
Feel-goods: You don’t have to eat the whole thing. Health Options: Ditto.
Internet: Check back in 30 years.
Gotta say I have to disagree with the review, and not for the better. We went with the kids fairly early on a Sunday, when the place was full but there was no line. The wait staff was pleasant but the wait for service and for food was long long long. When our dishes finally arrived (about a half hour after we sat down), it was a mix of hot, warm and cold. To top it off the flavors weren’t that great, and I had gone in expecting basic diner fare (hot, brown and plenty of it). Advice to myself in two parts: one, wait for a weekday morning so I can slip in late to work, and two, go to Byways.
Interesting! It never occurred to me to go to Fat City on a weekend, and now I know why. Also interesting in that, the last couple times I went to Byways, I liked it less and less. But at that level of food — diner fare — I think it really comes down to personal preferences. I have a friend who swears by Johnny B’s, for example, while I prefer Fuller’s. To each his own!
Hot, brown, and plenty of it — I like that way of saying it.
Paul
“Our food is hot, brown, and there’s plenty of it.” That’s the voice of the chuckwagon cook from City Slickers.
I’ll go along with the “to each his own” part. It wasn’t bad, it just didn’t impress us. I suppose each successful diner has a few dishes they do very well and the rest are just basic competency. So it’s up to each of us to decide how much falls into each category.
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