A Government Camp institution, The Huckleberry Inn has been a family-owned establishment for well over a half-century. Despite some exterior updates and interior improvements to the original dining room, it is still outdated with unprofessional hand-written signs (scribbled, not even an attempt at making a nice, neat sign by hand) on the walls, limited and often empty condiments on tables, and don't even get me started on the bathrooms... DISGUSTING! For a place that has 6-7 booths + diner-style counter service, the bathrooms were in such horrible disarray with overflowing trash onto the floor, empty soap dispenser, TP just sitting on the toilet in a most unsanitary way, overflowing used ladies' hygiene product receptacles in the stalls; and, the men's wasn't much better according to my male counterparts.
We are functional adult humans who shop for food in supermarkets and know what the cost of goods is to the end consumer. Considering that food service vendors provide products at cost to their customers indicates that ONE SINGLE EGG for $6.25 is absolutely ridiculous. This is just one example of how grossly overpriced their menu items are, especially given the quality of food--which is mostly pre-made, from the freezer product thrown on a grill and heated through with copious amounts of grease (which is surprising free of charge). If you order toast, you will receive one single teaspoonful of huckleberry jam in a plastic lidded ramekin--just enough to flavor about 1/2 of 1/2 of a piece of toast.
So what are the redeeming qualities here, you might ask? They are few. The service? Nope. The ambiance? Certainly not.
Servers can be heard yelling orders through the kitchen window. They can also be overheard chatting about personal matters such as a boyfriend of one of the female servers who apparently just got out of prison for purposefully assaulting a pedestrian with his vehicle. Charming you might ask--it gets worse--he is also a server at The Huckleberry Inn. Nothing helps digestion like being served by a road raging asshat who nearly killed someone with his car. Fun fact, I stopped at The Coffee Roasters in Rhododendron on another trip, and while discussing our unfortunate experience and the guy who used his car as a deadly weapon, one of the baristas told us that another server who works there has a restraining order against him for abusing his girlfriend. We had no idea we were eating in a prison work-release program.
The whole experience was so surreal and I will tell you, none of us will be back. We are all avid snowboarders and enjoy going to Mt. Hood Meadows nearly every weekend in the winter as season pass holders. The other day, we'd just packed up from camping and wanted a good meal on the way back to Portland. This was not our first time at The Huckleberry but it was certainly our last. It has never been great, but we wanted to give it another shot. You know how it is.
No. We don't need to eat subpar, basic food for exorbitant prices, served by ex-cons and woman abusers. We pray the owner reads this, because if he does one thing, it's to clean house in every sense of the phrase. And... perhaps when he is cashing people out at the register, he can be a little more friendly and a little less grumpy to the people who put up with his establishment's shortcomings. He's going to drive his family business into the ground with these kinds of operating practices. We want nothing more than to see a historic place like this not only thrive, but be run right--we'd settle for better, even. The whole place reeked of complacency and total lack of give-a-crap. Such a bummer.
PS: there are other establishments in Government Camp. Charlie's Mountain View, for example, has awesome food for reasonable/typical pricing for the area. Head down the road a bit and you'll find over a half-dozen spots in Welches ranging from burgers and pizza to high-end fine dining.
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