When longtime Oregon restaurateur Bill McCormick purchased Bend’s venerable Pine Tavern earlier this year, he promised he would be faithful to the family-friendly formula that has carried the restaurant through nearly eight decades in Central Oregon.

McCormick is no stranger to the food-and-beverage industry. Now semi-retired in the Bend area, the 75-year-old businessman was co-founder of the McCormick & Schmick’s chain of seafood restaurants and the former owner of Jake’s Famous Seafood and Jake’s Grill in Portland. Some changes to menu and atmosphere were inevitable.

An expanded selection of seafood entrees and other dishes, without compromising the Tavern’s list of longtime favorites, was no surprise. Neither, perhaps, was the installation of a row of curtained booths along the corridor between the lounge and the main dining room.

The restaurant’s trademark remains, of course — the giant ponderosa pine that rises through the dining-room roof, as it has done since it was enclosed in the 1950s. And the spacious riverside patio, surrounded on all sides by a lovely garden, continues to welcome diners through the warmer months.

But where the changes really need to happen, they have not. I realize that the Pine Tavern’s demographic — patronage is decidedly older than at most other Bend-area restaurants — may be less inclined to adventuresome dining than a younger crowd. But preparations can still be distinctive, and service can be attentive and consistent.

Lunch on the patio

Two companions and I were less than fulfilled after an outdoor lunch last week. We began with three different soups, followed by entrée dishes.

It was a warm day, so I ordered a chilled gazpacho soup to start. Served in a cocktail glass, the blend of tomatoes, parsley, onions, green peppers — and perhaps some other vegetables — didn’t have the “zing” I look for in a great gazpacho. It was served with a couple of slices of avocado and a single, overcooked prawn.

One of my friends had the soup du jour, a somewhat oily beef-barley potage. My other companion was satisfied with a bowl of the Pine Tavern’s signature French onion soup — a generous serving of onions brewed in a tureen of beef broth, topped with a slice of French bread, then finished with a layer of cheese. But even he complained of too much cheese. In addition to Gruyère, the traditional choice, it also had Swiss and Parmesan.

My entrée order was chicken Marsala. Served on a mound of house-made mashed potatoes — at least twice as many spuds as I could consume — the poultry was tender if a little too sweet, with the wine sauce dominating the chicken and tiny button mushrooms. I enjoyed it even if it lacked any subtlety of flavor.

One of my friends chose pasta primavera, again satisfactory but forgettable. Several vegetables — zucchini, yellow squash, kale and tomatoes — were stewed in a white wine sauce and tossed with fettuccine, cooked a little beyond the al dente benchmark.

My other companion opted for an entrée salad, a “classic” Caesar topped with a pair of Dungeness crab cakes. For a Caesar to be “classic,” however, it must have raw egg and anchovy. The nearest this came was house-made garlic croutons.

Although the chopped hearts of romaine were insufficiently dressed (extra dressing was provided on request), she enjoyed the crab, which was shaped into a pair of burger-sized patties and pan-fried. All the same, she felt they could have been better seasoned.

Dinner by the tree

My regular companion and I began a subsequent dinner in the lounge as we waited to be seated in the dining room. Happy-hour selections of wine by the glass were disappointing, but we agreed that a spinach-and-artichoke dip with slices of basil-Parmesan toast would be a good way to tease our appetites. It was agreeable but far from outstanding.

Our meals were more pleasing, and far superior to our lunches. The opening course — after the Pine Tavern’s deservedly famous scones, served with creamed honey butter — was a shared kale salad with a house-made pomegranate vinaigrette that we felt was wonderfully complementary.

As a main course, my companion chose an 8-ounce flatiron steak, served with a blue cheese sauce. It was perfectly cooked to her rare-to-medium rare request and presented with caramelized onions and mashed potatoes.

I chose fresh seafood from the daily special menu. My lightly blackened, grilled swordfish was a no-nonsense presentation served with lemon-flavored rice. The fish was delicious.

Too full to stay for dessert, we ordered our sweets to go. My companion’s New York-style cheesecake was superb, at once creamy and silky, with a touch of sour cream and a side of strawberries and sauce.

My bread pudding, on the other hand, didn’t turn out as I had hoped. A scoop of ice cream helped, but the lack of an Irish whiskey sauce, as promised by the menu, left it very dry, even after heating. If there’s a lesson here, it’s to not order bread pudding to go.

Service issues

Our server at lunch was a little slow. He was a nice enough fellow, but order taking and delivery of courses wasn’t exactly rapid, and special requests took a while. On the other hand, our server at dinner, a personable and attentive part-time student, was outstanding. He knew the menu, recommended wine pairings, was quick to take requests and in delivering water refills, and otherwise made our meal a joy.

But getting seated for that dinner had been difficult. Having arrived at an early midweek dinner hour without a reservation, we were told we’d have to wait in the lounge for a half-hour before a table would be ready. When 30 minutes had elapsed, I inquired at the hostess stand as to our table’s status, and the hostess said that because she hadn’t taken my name, we’d have to wait another half hour.

That’s not customer service. A bar employee came to our assistance, and five minutes later we were seated. But I was perplexed to see numerous tables, already set for diners, remain unoccupied for the rest of the evening. What was our wait about anyway?

— Reporter: janderson@bendbulletin.com