Travel Tips & Adventures

Wander into the funky, eccentric, artfully scattered and humorous décor of Cranky Sue’s in Cannon Beach and you’ll find some chuckles and great food.

Why is Sue cranky? After all, she has a successful restaurant in its third year and is going national with her clam chowder, Caesar dressing and crab cakes.Well, it all stems from a situation when she owned a previous restaurant on the East Coast. Normally, the restaurant was not open seven days a week. But, to keep a promise to be full service for the July 4th week, she stayed open and found herself running out of food.

To explain to customers why she decided to close, she detailed the situation and signed the note, “Cranky Sue.” The name stuck.

Switching coasts

When she fell in love with Cannon Beach eight years ago, Sue decided her next restaurant would be a “spin-off with ‘attitude.’”

When they moved to Cannon Beach and opened the restaurant, Cranky Sue’s seemed to be a natural progression. The restaurant caters to an upscale, casual crowd – Cannon Beach fits the client target perfectly – and are playfully enjoying the license their name and image gives them.

Having fun

Now, Sue Neuwirth and her daughter, Brooklyn Neuwirth, have fun with the cranky image. Despite the name, service is efficient and cheery. The menu and décor employ a freewheeling approach that will make a customer smile.

Even children are taken into consideration, as there is a child-sized table with coloring books and activities to keep the kids occupied.

One sign on the wall declared, “There will be a $5 charge for whining.”

Great food, well-prepared

The food will not make anyone whine. On the contrary, it is original, inventive, and very tasty. We devoured a serving of fries, “Brooke’s Fries,” within a few minutes. They had a “secret ingredient” and were so crunchy and peppery with a touch of parmesan that we were licking the basket. Brooklyn said the recipe came to her while she was pregnant. Pregnant people can be very creative with food.

The menu has attitude – but in a positive way.  Their motto is, “Furiously good food to improve your mood.”  They will “accommodate dietary requests. Most items can be made vegetarian and/or gluten free.”

A crab cake was crunchy with sweet pieces of crab. Unlike many places, Cranky Sue’s crab cake is not laden with mayo and every morsel was flavorful, but not greasy.

We had a great meal and fun time at Cranky Sue’s. Don’t expect fast food, but do expect a great experience and terrific taste appeal at Cranky Sue’s.

She says her name gives her a license to be rude, but any rudeness is only playful fun. The only rudeness could possibly be on the part of patrons as they are tempted to lick their plates – it’s that good!

Thanks to Sue Neuwirth for the recipe and her tongue-in-check approach to her restaurant and food! Enjoy!

RECIPE

Basil Pesto Mayo

¼ lb. fresh basil
¼ cup olive oil
6 cloves garlic
1 tsp salt
¼ cup parmesan cheese
1 tsp. black pepper
1 quart mayonnaise

In a food processor, combine the first 6 ingredients until they are evenly pulverized. Put the mayonnaise in a bowl and add the ingredients from the food processor. Using a whipping motion, mix the ingredients into the mayo until the mixture is smooth. Refrigerate until used.  Great with fish and almost anything.

They are closed only on Wednesday – her “decrankifying” day.

Sue can be reached at crankysues@hotmail.com  - Tell her you saw Cranky Sue’s on our blog! Have an uncranky day!

http://www.cannon-beach.net/crankysues/

Next week…We spend the week in Vancouver, BC.  Get your passports ready (except for our Canadian friends, of course.)

Tags: Cannon Beach, Food, Oregon, Recipe, Restaurant, Travel

This entry was posted on Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 6:00 am and is filed under Beach, Family Fun, Food, Restaurant, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.