O’Brien’s Cafe

First time in Silverton Oregon. We stopped for lunch at O’Brien’s Café and were greeted by — no one. After a considerable amount of time a woman approached who seemed kind of annoyed that we were there. We were instructed to wait for her to get a table ready for us despite a large table that say empty nearby. The place wasn’t busy at all, even though it was the lunch hour.
We should have gotten the clue.
A very friendly guy who works there told us to go ahead and take the table that was empty, so we did. This seemed to tick woman number 1 off and she literally ignored our table for at least 10 minutes. We watched as she served people who had arrived after us, and even lean on the counter and talk to someone at the counter all without having even given us a glass of water or taken our order! My husband finally walked over to her as she was chatting up the counter person and asked for water.
She reluctantly brought us water and menus and we waited yet longer for our order to be taken. She sternly warned us that the cooks were new, and it’s going to be awhile.
Why oh why didn’t we just walk out? Other people did!
I ordered a pancake «best in Oregon!» they boasted. Also two sausage links and scrabbled eggs. Hubs ordered a hamburger and fries, as did my brother-​in-​law. After some time she brought out my pancake which was the size of a large dinner plate. Sadly though, it was pale, almost white and was extremely rubbery. They might want to rethink the whole «best in Oregon» promise. The sausage links were rancid. They smelled very spoiled and tasted so bad I spit it out. I complained and was brought two more sausages that were entirely different. This only confirmed to me that the original ones were likely slimy and spoiled and had to be thrown out.
Hubs got a mediocre hamburger and about 6 fries, while his brother got more fries than he could eat.
The place was stiflingly hot (no AC) and the décor ran the gamut between an old print of a sailing ship and dollar store Chinese lanterns dangling from fishing line from a couple of old ladders suspended from the ceiling.
It’s a terrible place. I’m convinced that by the time you read this whole review (longer than most) the place will have long since gone out of business.
Good riddance. Maybe it’ll give waitress #1 time to take some courses on how to develop people skills.

I look for the good in everything but O’Brien’s Café has me stumped.
Food was okay.
Here is the problem… O’Brien’s is dirty. Please hire a professional crew to clean this place.
It is a hodgepodge of cast off furniture, and plastic table cloths.
The stairwell to the bathroom was dismal, and the bathroom was really sad. I could not bring myself to use it.
Maybe the owner needs to call Robert Irvine of Restaurant Impossible for a much needed update.
O’Brien’s Café was a huge disappointment.

AMBIANCE: nothing unique. Just a small town café with tables. No real theme to the restaurant.
LOCATION: Easy find. Street parking mostly, but luckily silverton meters are very cheap.
SERVICE: Was fair, was able to do everything in a timely manner, but had no desire to talk anymore with customers. We were the only ones in the café.
FOOD: Decent hearty american meal with eggs, bacon, hash browns, and toast. Bacon was actually thick and well cooked. Everything came out warm. Good cure for hangovers.
PRICE: Reasonably price, especially for being in such a small town.

Good tasty cheap breakfast. You even can sit out back and look at the river in a nice day with your eggs and sausage. The pancakes are good and I love the sausage links.

The good thing about Obriens – it’s on The principal street in downtown Silverton. It’s locally owned and I find the staff to be friendly. That’s about it. There’s nothing vegetarian friendly except veggie burgers, so that was all we tried. And the tater tots. I don’t think this place will be a regular spot for me, although I wish them well.

To my fellow « Unilocalers»
Simply DON’T.
I would say that if you are really, really, really hungry and everything else is closed, (maybe!)
Service was not the greatest.
Food was from FSA & Sysco.
We were really looking forward to a drive in the country and a homemade breakfast. Didn’t happen. DARN.
The bathroom was in the top 10 worst bathrooms I have ever been in. The walk to get to the bathroom was almost worse. Do not send you children alone. I was even a little afraid going down the stairs.

A local shop employee steered us here on our visit here for some homey food. The server was extremely friendly and engaged with my talkative kids. Said kids did not like the peppered bacon. I ordered a Reuben with house made corned beef and some house turkey as well. It really wasn’t awful but the 1000 dressing lacked and I got processed Swiss cheese. My hubs had corned beef hash and said too many potatoes and not enough meat.
Not bad but not great but again staff was super nice.

We stopped in here for lunch after a morning of exploring the town. It was busy so we thought it must be pretty good. Décor is old and tired out. could use an update and the restrooms, while clean were also old and outdated which gave it a bit of an unclean feeling. The food was good however (we both had sandwiches) but the service leaves something to be desired as stated in other reviews. The waitress did not once come back to ask if we needed anything or refills on drinks. Just dropped the check off and said you can pay at the counter when you are done. The one bright spot was a nice older lady who was up at the counter visiting with some of the staff and thanked us for coming into the café. She was very sweet (perhaps the owner?) Would not return if/​when we come back to Silverton.

Went here for Father’s Day brunch. I had the blueberry pancakes, my husband and my father had a cheese omelette and my step mom had the biscuits and gravy. My pancakes were good, but not amazing. The omelette had so much cheese it ended up being really greasy. The service was not that great, she was nice, but never came back to check on us. It was also Father’s Day and it was busy, so she may have just been overwhelmed.
Over all it was alright, not sure we would go back.

We just moved to Silverton and have begun to think of OBriens as our ‘Saturday’ breakfast spot. There are other places in town but they win out in medium priced, consistently we’ll prepared food. Good options, great omelettes. Décor is very kitschy and mixed but clean. Waitstaff not always as attentive as some places but they’ve never gotten my order wrong.

Came here on a Sunday afternoon with kids. Husband asked about the jalapeño burger and was given absolutely no more information than was on the menu — which was something along the lines of «great new item.» Burgers tasted pre-​made. Kids’ burgers were ordered plain and came with lettuce and onions and pickles. They charged us for adult burger instead of kids and adult price on drinks for all 3. Service was slow and grudging. Definitely not worth the prices. Should have gone to A&W

Always looking for a cute little mom & pop place to eat, we decided on O’Brien’s. All of the tables on the deck overlooking the water were taken but the friendly waitress said we could move outside when a table came open. We placed our order and were informed a table had opened, so we moved outside. The view of the water was lovely, however the view of the last guests meal that sat on our table throughout our entire stay, regardless of the waitress coming to our table twice, was disgusting. One time she took a couple of plates, but never returned to remove the rest. When we went to pay for our meal purchase, the young man was friendly and even knew of the situation with our table and apologized, but that was about it. If he knew about our table not being cleared, he should have come out and cleared it verses apologizing after the fact.
Overall: View– Beautiful
Food– Average
Wait staff– friendly but incompetent.
If they are too busy to clear tables, they should hire someone to help. If they are too lazy to do it, hire replacements. No one should have to look at someone else’s garbage, dirty dishes and food remains during their meal.

Im from san diego, ca and i was visiting a friend in mt. angel just outside of silverton when me and my girlfriend decided to take a drive and find a place for lunch. We ended up at obriens café. Obriens staff really made us feel at home, with there «moms house» décor and the very attentive staff. I ordered the french dip and it was pretty good, but those french fries were the best ive ever had. So good in fact me and my girlfriend ate there 3 – 4 times during our stay. Yes they could improve in some things, but this is just the small town feel we were looking for. I recomended this place to all my friends up there and if i return to oregon the first place im going is obriens.

Went with my parents for breakfast this morning and my mom and I got biscuits with our mini breakfasts. My biscuit had a really big spot of mold on it and my mom’a biscuit also has a tiny bit. Really gross and really makes you wonder! Not eating there again, that’s for sure.

Not the first time I have eaten at O’Brien’s and won’t be the last, though it might be the last time I order the corned beef hash. We always try to sit on the patio when we come here for breakfast, but today the yellow jackets won out and we had to retreat indoors just as our food arrived.
To be fair about the corned beef hash, I am a bit of a corned beef hash snob and I don’t like cubed potatoes for my hash. I think this preparation tends to leave the hash a little dry and today was no exception to that. I simply forgot that was how they made it here or I would have ordered something else. The eggs were a perfect over-​medium and the biscuit was nice and fluffy.
My husband a mini breakfast with one egg, two bacon and a biscuit and said it was excellent. His egg was over easy, and a true over easy and his bacon was at that perfect place between limp and too crisp.
Service here has been hit and miss in the past, but today the young man who waited on us did an excellent job. We will definitely go back, I will just have to remember to order something other than corned beef hash.
There are no frills at this restaurant, but the food is consistent, and when it isn’t bee season, the deck is a nice place to enjoy breakfast while overlooking Silver Creek running down below.

Friendly staff. Food… not so good. I ordered the grilled chicken salad. The chicken was processed meat with a spongy rubbery texture, but in the shape of a chicken breast. The tomatoes on my salad were old and mushy. They tasted sour, too. Not good.
My friend ordered the chicken phili sandwich. Same chicken, spongy, rubbery, fake. The owner or bookkeeper sat along the bar with her computer for everyone to see their spreadsheets. To me, it was an unintended message of just making money, and not investing into their product. WHY would you want to display your spreadsheets right where the most customer traffic is walking right past you? I thought that was weird to say the least, and obviously unprofessional.

This café has awesome foods, awesome, great service, and clean restrooms.

I really enjoyed O’Brien’s Café today with my husband. I grew up in Silverton, and grew up coming to O’Brien’s for breakfast. My husband & I both had pancakes (which are HUGE and fluffy and delicious and just perfect) with syrup. The waitress gave us maple syrup (good) and marionberry syrup (out of this freaking world)… we really enjoyed our breakfast :)
Service was great, wish she’d refilled our water a bit more often, but that’s just being nitpicky. Perfect breakfast– we had a total of 4 GIANT plate sized pancakes between the 2 of us and spent under $ 10. Great deal!!!

So the wife asks me to drive her down to Silverton so she can go to the yarn store there. We go in and they had so many local knitters in the place she could not see anything and she is ready to go in 5 min.
As we get into the car she asked me to look up on my phone and see if there are any other yarn stores nearby.
As I do this the smell of bacon is coming into the car from O’Brien’s. She looks at me and says come on lets go eat. Ok in we go, the place is filled with only a few tables open so we sit down and order. I got the pancake meal which was two big ass pancakes with eggs and pepper bacon. She ended up with the French toast meal same as mine only with French toast. I must say it was good, was it the best I ever had no but it hit the spot and there was no way I would finish all of my pancakes which is a first. They were just too big… The wife looks at me after eating half of her order and asks do you want mine? Hell no woman you know I always clean my plate unless it so bad I can’t eat it and you ask me if I want yours with of my plate still full…
So if in Silverton and you are hungry stop by and get yourself a couple of big ass pancakes.

I really like visiting small towns and have an odd affection for their old fashioned diners. This place has all sorts of interesting touches if you take the time to wander through the restaurant. It started with Santa’s mailbox by the front door. But the best was the little antique store on the bottom level that had all sorts of random (not really antique) items for sale. My son came running back to the table excited because they had a crawdad trap.
The wall of the restaurant is covered with a mural that is a sweet ode to small town life and the tables have floral covers. The service was small town friendly and it appeared to be a family run business. They also have a back deck overlooking Silver Creek so you can eat outside.
If I was just with my husband or hiking with friends, I would have made a different choice for a place to eat in Silverton. But for a casual place with the kids this was just fine. We went with the basics, grilled cheese sandwiches, a cheeseburger and the grilled turkey. Prices were reasonable and the highlight for my boys was the strawberry lemonade. Served in an oversized glass it was ridiculously large and sweet. They refilled it with (plain) lemonade and gave us to-​go cups so it was a sweet deal.
This is pretty basic diner fare and not remotely healthy, so I can’t give it a ringing endorsement. But for Silverton, I think it was A-​OK.