Out in the parking lot, James Center has one of the famous hexagonal Shari's restaurants. At the time I took these pictures, Shari's didn't have any obvious problems yet, but it definitely seemed like they weren't doing all that well, within a segment of the restaurant industry that had long been in decline. In the years since then, Shari's has entered broken chain status, completely exiting their home state of Oregon in 2024 and closing most of their Washington locations in the following years. This one appears to have closed in early 2025, and is now home to a sushi all-you-can-eat place (weirdly enough).
Shari's was already in decline when I went to Portland in 2023, but they were still plentiful around town. By my visit back to Portland last year, things had taken a turn for the worst and they were, as you say, a broken chain by then. Although I was interested in visiting a Shari's in 2023 as there was one very close to the hotel we were staying at in Troutdale, a lot of the recent at the time reviews for various Shari's locations indicated that the cleanliness of the restaurants and general quality of everything had taken a nosedive. Thus, I stayed away.
ReplyDeleteI did eat at another similar type of breakfast all day restaurant chain in Portland last year which is a local favorite, Elmer's. We ate at the one over near PDX. It was quite nice and I can see how Elmer's might have clearly surpassed Shari's and managed to stay alive when Shari's didn't. Of course, while Elmer's might look pretty nice on the inside, they don't have nearly as distinctive of exteriors as Shari's did!
Shari's had definitely been in decline for a while, and that's why I never bothered eating in one even though they look so cool. I feel like Shari's never had a great reputation, and their end-stage cost-cutting clearly didn't help. I had my broken chain experience at Skipper's and I don't have a ton of interest in doing that again!
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