![]() Devlin says September 29’s first Crave the Coastfestival in Garibaldi is just the start throughout fall and winter, North Coast Food Trail partners plan to host a series of farm- and dock-to-table dinners (perhaps even one served onboard an Oregon Scenic Railroad train). What’s next for Wheeler, and beyond? Convincing inlanders such bounty can be found year-round. Or south a bit at Kelly’s Brighton Marina, where coolers offer cold, local Pelican ales to wash down a day’s Dungeness crab haul. Or that hamburger at the Salmonberry Saloon, made with Nehalem River Ranch’s lean, grass-fed beef. Take Ginger and Brigham Edwards’s North Fork 53 retreat, where there are plans for an on-site food cart selling pastries from Seaside’s Dough Dough Bakery. So far, evidence of this mutual admiration society is everywhere. The idea is that by aggressively focusing on a message that sells a whole stretch of coast (rather than individual towns or attractions), a single tourism campaign will float all boats- if enough partners grab paddles. All along the North Coast, it’s like a collective excitement.” “More purveyors are getting their groove on. “I can feel it start to happen,” Hylton says. But when former Portland cook Mike Aldridge (Headwaters, Urban Farmer) serves wild CSF halibut slathered in romesco and edible flowers from Manzanita’s Bird Song Bouquets, it’s actually in service of something even bigger happening here: a community-wide effort to rebrand the coast as a hotbed of cottage industries. It might look like hubris, such hyperlocal ambition in the heart of these trucked-in chowderlands. Unlike the Tsunami, the Salmonberry’s menu proudly touts a cornucopia of high-end North Coast foodstuffs, from Nestucca Bay Creamery cheeses to seafood from Nevør Shellfish and Jeff Wong’s Garibaldi-based CS Fishery. ![]() Like its dive-y predecessor, the Salmonberry makes the most of its stunning waterfront views. Hylton, back in the early aughts, was the epitome of Portland cool, booking bands at Portland’s then-extant Blackbird music club. But a year ago, Hylton and her partner, artist Patrick Rock, gave up city life and moved here, to Wheeler this past March, they opened the Salmonberry Saloon in a rough-shingled, bay-facing space most recently home to the Tsunami Grill. Witness the nervous fair-weather cyclists clinging to the shoulder of Highway 101, the crowds at new coastal breweries lining up for session ales and selfies, the young families (stocking up for the Big One?) single-handedly cornering the saltwater taffy market. Like most of its neighboring communities, Astoria’s fishing industry took a huge hit decades ago these days, there are signs of economic recovery, as the effects of booming Portland ripple west. That’s mostly good news for a stretch of Oregon’s North Coast that sorely needs tourist dollars. ![]() Even tiny Manzanita, another 14 miles south of Cannon Beach, now feels like an open secret. Some 20 miles farther south, the main drags of Cannon Beach and Seaside are cute, quaintly weathered, and also utterly discovered. Lately, there are more Portlanders than usual, and some of them are staying-driving real estate prices up, along with some grumbling about. ![]() A ll summer long in downtown Astoria, day-trippers throng new bistros, breweries, and high-end bakeries.
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