Manning’s latest restaurant opened with a soft opening Friday morning, welcoming their first customers at 11 a.m. in their spot at the corner of Sunset Highway and Dingheiser Road.
Sunset Hwy Bar & Grill’s menu features diner-style foods ranging from burgers (at least 10 variants grace the new restaurant’s menu) to fish, steak and a weekend breakfast menu starting Oct. 12.
It’s a family business; father Miguel Blas Beltran is the head chef, while sons Roberto and Miguel round out the main staff.
They’ll be joined by extended family as needed when things get busy, Roberto said.
“I used to work here,” Miguel Sr. said, noting that he was a chef back when the spot housed the most well-known restaurant to grace the building, Blue Jays Restaurant.
Most recently, the building housed Manning’s Country Kitchen, before that, Mary’s Bar & Grill and before that, Blue Jays Restaurant.
“I came back, with my whole family. That was our dream to open a business,” he said.
Until the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission grants the restaurant their stamp of approval, the bar portion of the bar & grill is limited to nonalcoholic beverages.
The spot is planning a grand opening closer to Halloween, but doesn’t yet have a firm date, pending OLCC approval.
Two of the first people to eat at the newly minted restaurant said they’d heard about the opening from another Manning business just across Dingheiser Road, Sunset Jerky and More.
Will Painter and Jacob Wheeler were in the area on a trip from Los Angeles. They’d been staying at Stub Stewart State Park.
“This is probably our fifth shop in town that we’ve been able to check out,” Painter said.
“Everyone talks so well of each other here,” he said, noting the two had extended their stay by a few hours just to make the opening of the restaurant.
(This journalist, a poor food critic, will leave judgement of the food to the discerning readers of the Banks Post, but I tried their French fries and shrimp skewers and enjoyed both. The fries were crisp yet still nicely oiled in the way I believe restaurant fries should be, and the shrimp skewers were seasoned well with a Cajun-style seasoning.)
Find the restaurant on Facebook and Instagram.
Sunset Hwy Bar & Grill is located at 47100 NW Sunset Hwy in Manning. The restaurant is open Monday – Friday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Chas Hundley is the editor of the Banks Post and sister news publications the Gales Creek Journal and the Salmonberry Magazine. He grew up in Gales Creek and has a cat.