At the Hop

[November 21st, 2007]

Nostalgia makes people do odd things. It might make one guy call ex-girlfriends when he’s drunk, another care about a baseball team of millionaire strangers. Or nostalgia might make you plunk a rock ’n’ roll cafe on Northeast Sandy Boulevard. For Mark Lindsay’s Rock&Roll Cafe (4160 NE Sandy Blvd., 288-9297), part of the premise was to trade on the burgerlicious memories of a long-closed Hollywood neighborhood eatery—Yaw’s. The Yaw’s name-dropping is ending, thanks to legal squabbles between Lindsay and the Yaw family. But the restaurant, and its memorabilia-slathered walls of guitars and award-winning LPs from Lindsay’s days with Paul Revere and the Raiders, remains. Last Saturday night, a crowd of folks—seemingly none between the ages of 18 and 35—filled the tables and bar stools. Our efficient and pleasant server brought suitably greasy onion rings sprinkled with Parmesan ($6.95) and a cheeseburger ($7.75). And an IPA from Laurelwood Brewery was a nice paean to the new Hollywood institution. If you’ve got company just hungering to learn all that was Portland’s early contribution to music, this is the place. But if you just want a burger and a beer, you can find better and cheaper on mom ’n’ pop Sandy Boulevard.