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The latest, and perhaps saddest (to inhabitants of this office, anyway) casualty in the Battle for Old Restaurants to Stay Open in a Changing Portland, is Guild's Lake Inn, the old-school, tray-on-counter diner in Northwest Industrial District that we named "Best Lunch in a Time Machine" in this year's Best of Portland issue.
In that piece, we described the friendly 30-year-old lunch spot—home to egg salad and pastrami sandwiches and a lot of Beaver mustard— as "the kind of cafeteria where Peggy Olson spent her lunch breaks…. Guild's Lake Inn will finally make you understand what people mean when they talk about 'the good old days.'"
The restaurant's final day will be Christmas Eve.
In an email Tuesday, owner Brian McAdams, who frequently works the till at the diner—and will happily explain its long history to anyone who asks—wrote:
It's a sad turn of events for one of the only cheap and delicious options for people working in Northwest Industrial.
McAdams is sorriest about the impact the loss of Guild's Lake Inn will have on the community:
You have approximately two more weeks to get over to Guild's Lake Inn on your lunch break. Get a burger and at least one type of salad and ask McAdams about why the place is named after a lake when there clearly isn't a lake nearby.
It's a good story, and one hopes it isn't lost forever when the building turns over to its new custodians.
Willamette Week