Location: Black Butte Ranch, nine miles northeast of Sisters off Highway 20

Hours: Wednesday through Sunday 8 to 11:30 a.m. breakfast, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. lunch, 5 to 9 p.m. dinner

Price Range: Breakfast from $2.50 to $14, lunch from $4 to $14, dinner entrees from $15 to $29.50

Alcoholic Beverages: Full service

Kids’ Menu: Yes

Reservations: Recommended for dinner, available for breakfast or lunch for parties of six or more

Credit Cards: Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express

Contact: 595-1260

BLACK BUTTE RANCH – The Lodge Restaurant at Black Butte Ranch feels like home to its regular patrons.

One resident of ”the Ranch,” as locals call it, has cheese shipped from France every year so the restaurant’s chefs can make his favorite Christmastime delicacy. Other residents call the chefs for cooking tips.

The Lodge Restaurant may seem like home to them, but what an elegant home it is.

The restaurant’s setting is in a meadow with a pond where herons wade and eagles swoop. In the distance are aspen groves and Cascade peaks.

And nearly every seat in the dining room faces a window.

On the inside of the bay windows are plates filled with steaming pan-fried oysters, grilled filet mignon and crab cakes and monster-sized slices of mud pie.

The Lodge Restaurant has been the hangout for people staying in the more than 1,200 homes on the ranch since it opened in 1971. It’s also open to the public. It has long been a dining destination for residents of Central Oregon and the Willamette Valley.

The reason? Good food in a welcoming atmosphere. The same reasons The Lodge Restaurant keeps staff for years, if not decades.

Most servers at The Lodge Restaurant have long tenures. One of the waiters keeps a log of customers, tracking new developments like marriages and grandchildren. The waiter always remembers to inquire about the family the next time they come in.

Executive Chef David Berger pays just as much attention to the menu, rotating some entrees with the seasons. Right now, the menu focuses on theme weeks and offers different ethnic choices each week. This week’s special is Italian-themed plates.

The Lodge Restaurant also offers 120 different wines by the bottle and 24 wines by the glass. Berger notes that there is also a steward’s list that offers 15 high-end wines.

Berger also mentions the oysters as a big hit with diners, and that prime rib is offered Friday and Saturday nights.

Berger said that the restaurant is more traditional and that things don’t change all that much, but that is because what they have works, and they are going to stick with it.

– Heidi Hagemeier