Blackbird Cafe has taken off, restaurant now is Walnut City Kitchen

Updated Dec. 22, 2012, see below.

Original headline: "Blackbird Cafe has 'landed' in McMinnville"

Had lunch 12/21/2011 at Blackbird Cafe in McMinnville, Ore., Enjoyed good food, quickly served and attractively presented. Order selected from pleasantly minimalistic menu. The cafe had a "soft opening" last week during the month of December 2011. A cafe employee said its "grand opening" will be in January 2012. It's on Stratus Avenue, near the Comfort Inn and McMinnville's Hospital, the Willamatte Valley Medical Center. Why Blackbird? Stratus Avenue gives a clue. So do the other cloud street names in the "neighborhood." Its near McMinnville Municipal Airport. The most important clue is the impossible to miss Evergreen Aviation Museum across the "street," Oregon state Route 18/Salmon River Highway. One of the aircraft in the museum collection is the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird spy plane.The restaurant black color scheme and "art" plays off the Blackbird legacy. Here's a link to the cafe Facebook page. From September 2011 in the McMinnville News-Register there's mention of the cafe, in a photo cutline and story.

Blackbird Café hours
Mon: 11am-9pm
Tue–Sat: 7am-9pm
Sun: Closed

POSTSCRIPT -- See photo below of Walnut City Kitchen taken by Mac News on Dec. 22, 2012. The "kitchen" is at location of the former Blackbird Cafe.  Molly Walker's "Along the Street" business column in the Sept. 29, 2012, McMinnville News-Register said of the closing: "The Blackbird Café, which opened in December, 2011, next to the Comfort Inn Suites and Hotel near Willamette Valley Medical Center in McMinnville, has closed. Details on the next development for the restaurant are anticipated shortly." The "next development" is a restaurant, Walnut City Kitchen. A Gerry Frank review of Walnut City Kitchen in the 8/25/2013 Oregonian includes, "Time was when McMinnville was known more for producing walnuts than for world-class wines, hence the name" of the restaurant. Based on the review, apparently the restaurant is nicknamed "The Nut."

Uletide Ukes 12/18/2011 at FBC

Yamhill HighFlyers, we hardly knew yee

Do you recall the Yamhill HighFlyers professional basketball team -- a member of the International Basketball League? This photo was taken 12/18/2011 at interesection of Highway 99W and Riverwood Road near Dundee (Yamhill County), Ore. Here's a link to the team's website. Here's a link to a June 2011 story about the team in the McMinnville News-Register. According to it, the HighFlyers will be back in 2012.

Mac's electric wreaths indicate Christmas 2011

Another sign of Christmas in Mac was seen 12/16/2011 at the intersection of Southwest Hill and Baker Creek Roads.

Parks & Rec Basketball 12/15/2011

Putting up Christmas lights 12/11/2011

Let's go to the Rocket!

Let's go to the Rocket!

Originally posted June 6, 2008 — Text edited/rewritten and re-posted Nov 3, 2022

Let's remember the Rocket Cafe in Rocket Valley in McMinnville.

Apparently, it opened in the 1950s and closed its door in the 1980s.

While the Rocket no longer exists, it's remembered by many.

Where Print NW sits now at the corner of Linfield Avenue and 99W/Baker is where the Rocket Cafe lived. Address: . 1142 South Baker/99W, McMinnville. Phone: 472-2226. It was easy walk of a couple blocks from the Linfield campus.

For many years, Linfield; dining hall did not serve Sunday dinner to its students. So, eating off campus at dinnertime on Sunday was part of the routine. The Rocket was a popular Sunday dinner location.

What were favorite items on the Rocket menu? The Rocket Burger, Moon Rings (onion rings) and Missile Fries.

One frequent customer said the burger was "not round, but an elongated oblong to look more like a rocket. And, "A favorite low-priced item was the fried egg sandwich and a favorite budget beverage was a 'pine float' -- a glass of water and a toothpick."

Why was it called the Rocket?  That came from the fact Rocket brand gasoline was sold at the Rocket service station gas pumps in what was called Rocket Valley. Thus, Rocket Valley was home of both the cafe and service station.

Open 24-hours a day, it served breakfast, lunch and dinner any time you wanted. What could be "more finer" than the Rocket's good food 24-hours? All day, all night, what could be more handy? It was all at the Rocket.

Flying Saucer

And, there was the "Flying Saucer." One Linfield grad -- who worked at the Rocket as kitchen help and dishwasher -- describes it as "a shameful concoction of a butterhorn pastry topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream." The 'Saucer,' said the grad, came in two forms: 1) Flying Saucer (butterhorn only) or 2) Flying Saucer a la mode (butterhorn with ice cream).

The grad balks at those who insist a Flying Saucer was always a butterhorn, ice cream and chocolate sauce. Perhaps the chocolate sauce was a person's “custom order," but it was not what was on the menu.

Sometime during 1966-1970 or so, one of the waitresses at the Rocket was "Fay."

The grad who worked at the Rocket said their favorite order was Fay calling out "Rocket Burger, Missile Fries and Flying Saucer a la mode." 

Photos: Rocket Café drinking glass thanks for Art Larrance, Linfield Class of 1966. Ads from Oak Leaves yearbook and Lindex phone directory.

POSTCRIPT --Found online was this posting. The poster was seeking information about Rocket service stations and cafes. There used to be both in two Oregon cities McMinnville and Willamina. There also was a Rocket service station in Yamhill, Oregon. And there were apparently some 30 Rocket stations in the Portland, Oregon, area. Some of those 30 might have included McMinnville, Willamina and Yamhill. Apparently, the Tower Oil Co. and/or F. H. Tower owned the Willamina station. I assume either/or also had a role in the McMinnville and Yamhill stations. An Oct. 19, 1982, United Press International story with a Portland, Oregon, dateline said ==Tower Oil Co. will go out of the petroleum business Dec. 31, the company's president says. Charles E. Schafroth, Tower president, recently informed the company's 30 dealers in the Portland area of the decision but refused to comment on the matter apart from allowing a secretary to read the letter he sent to dealers. The letter said ''the current economy and market situation in our industry have combined to make it impossible for the corporation to continue to market gasoline and make a profit, even meager.''== An obituary, published in March 2008, in the McMinnville newspaper, said the deceased, who died at age 47, began his working career at Chevron Rocket Gas. It’s a guess that when Tower Oil quit selling its own gasoline, the Rocket name lived on with some stations selling other brands of gas, including Chevron. With this post are two photos, one for the McMinnville Rocket (more cars) and the other for the Willamina Rocket (one car). Unfortunately, they only show the cafe part of the operations."