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THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MAY 4, 2021
Mo’s holds on to celebrate 75th anniversary
By LORI TOBIAS
For The Oregonian
Dylan McEntee had been on the road for
nearly 10 hours, pulling a trailer loaded with
Mo’s chowder and cobbler en route to Utah
where customers awaited their orders. Tak-
ing a rest stop with his family near Eureka,
Nevada, McEntee heard a knock on the win-
dow, and turned to see the sheriff . It didn’t
look good.
“He asked me, ’’Do you have chow-
der in that trailer?’” said McEntee, whose
great-grandmother Mo Niemi founded Mo’s
Seafood and Chowder. “I said, ‘I do.’ He
said, ‘Oh, my wife would kill me if I didn’t
buy some.’”
It was one of the many memorable
moments from a spring of road trips forced
by COVID-19, a Hail Mary move designed
to save the family business that began in
Newport in 1946. What should have been a
year of preparation for Mo’s 75th anniver-
sary celebration, became instead a year of
worry, doubt and the very real possibility
that Mo’s wouldn’t see that milestone.
“In March 2020, we had to lay off almost
every single person,” said Gabrielle McEn-
tee, Mo’s great-granddaughter. “This was
probably the most heart-breaking day of my
life as a restaurant owner.”
It was think quick or turn off the lights.
“We decided to take some of our home-
made products on the road,” Gabrielle said.
“We went to towns where we had friends
and family that could help us get their
friends and family to buy what we called
Beach Bundles.”
The bundles included chowder base,
Rogue root beer, Mo’s label Oregon Coast
tuna, garlic cheese butter, homemade bread
and mini marionberry cobblers.
“The cool thing about Beach Bundles is
we always donated something to that town
… to a food share or food bank,” Gabrielle
said. “From March until the end of June,
we traveled all over Oregon, Idaho, Wash-
ington, Utah. The sales literally saved the
business.”
Not just the business, but an Oregon
legacy.
If you’ve spent any time in Oregon you
probably know the history of the original
Mo’s. It begins in the 1940s, when Mo (short
for Mohava) Niemi opened a small diner on
Newport’s Bayfront. It was a locals’ kind of
a place featuring a menu rich with comfort
food like chicken-fried steak and 90-cent
spaghetti and meatballs. But not much sea-
food. “Seafood back then was for the poor
people,” Dylan said. “That’s what they ate
every day because it was a seafood town.”
Then, in the 1970s, “Sometimes A Great
Notion” starring Paul Newman and Henry
Fonda was fi lmed in Lincoln County and
the celebrity cast discovered Mo’s. Tourists
also started fl ocking to the place. What drew
them was the chowder, which happened to
Jamie Hale/The Oregonian
The original location of Mo’s Seafood and Chowder is still in business in Newport.
IF YOU’VE SPENT ANY TIME IN OREGON
YOU PROBABLY KNOW THE HISTORY OF THE
ORIGINAL MO’S. IT BEGINS IN THE 1940S, WHEN
MO (SHORT FOR MOHAVA) NIEMI OPENED A
SMALL DINER ON NEWPORT’S BAYFRONT. IT WAS
A LOCALS’ KIND OF A PLACE FEATURING A MENU
RICH WITH COMFORT FOOD LIKE CHICKEN-
FRIED STEAK AND 90-CENT SPAGHETTI AND
MEATBALLS. BUT NOT MUCH SEAFOOD.
be made by a shifting crew of three compet-
itive cooks who made variations of white
New England style clam chowder. Soon,
diners started planning their visits to Mo’s
based on whose chowder was up that day.
“We had three diff erent chowders going,”
Dylan said. “Mo pulled all the cooks into the
kitchen and told them we are going to come
up with one recipe and that’s what we’re
going to go with. When people come to eat
clam chowder, they are going to know what
they’re getting.”
Decades later, the recipe remains the
same. The family still owns and operates
Mo’s Seafood & Chowder restaurants —
two on the Bayfront and one in Otter Rock.
The other namesake restaurants are owned
by a corporation Mo entered into an agree-
ment with in the late 1970s.
As troubling as the past year has been,
it also made for some amusing stories des-
tined to be passed on for years. There were
the people who greeted Dylan and his crew
on the road, sharing stories of their time at
Mo’s.
There was the offi cer in the Idaho park-
ing lot, whom Dylan approached thinking
“to soften the blow.” “He said, ‘Oh no, I’m
just here to pick up my chowder.’ His wife
had made a big order.”
And it wouldn’t be the last time the crew
encountered the sheriff in Eureka. As Dylan
and his wife, Celeste, were returning from
yet another trip, she texted their new friend
— a former Oregon State baseball player
— to let him know they had 300 quarts of
chowder and 60 cobblers remaining from
their deliveries.
“He said, ‘Show up at the fi re station in
Eureka. I already have all of that sold.’ It
was 1 o’clock in the morning and it seemed
like the entire population of 300 was there,”
Dylan recalled. “They bought everything
we had left.”
It was a gratifying experience both for
the McEntees and the people hundreds of
miles from Mo’s. “It made them feel they
were being thought of,” Dylan said. “Some
people told me they hadn’t been able to
make it to the coast for years because of
their health. They were just so grateful we
would come to their town and deliver. It
was really touching.”
And it was made possible not only by
the people who turned out to order their
Beach Bundles from afar, but by the clan
at home, led by Cindy McEntee, president
of the business, mother to Gabrielle and
Dylan, and very close to her late “Granny
Mo.”
When it became obvious it could no lon-
ger be business as usual, Cindy picked up
the phone. “I said, ‘We’re going to have
to pull our socks up and work.’ And then
we just opened up for takeout and I started
baking pies again.”
Gabrielle’s husband, Shelby Knife, a
fi refi ghter, turned out to have a knack for
making dough, while Celeste took on the
marionberry fi lling. Some of the grandkids
waited on customers at the door while oth-
ers fi lled containers with garlic cheese but-
ter, or folded boxes for the cobbler.
“We were all baking bread,” Cindy
said. “Hundreds of loaves a day. The daily
amount of cobblers was 90, until we bought
new carts and then it was 120. We did
everything we could. It was really — it was
really kind of fun.”
It also called to mind another time when
Mo’s future was questionable, a time when
Cindy saw no choice but to take charge. In
1975, Mo’s had been closed for six months
as crews worked to remodel the Bayfront
building. Workers had torn out the back
and walls and added a formerly non-exis-
tent foundation. It was to be a three-month
job, but nearly seven months into it, the
remodel remained unfi nished.
“My grandmother just broke down,”
Cindy said, her voice shaky now. “She lost
faith in the whole thing. They had liter-
ally ripped our building apart. We missed
Christmas and were missing spring break.
When she broke down, I called the head
waitress and head cook. I said, ‘We have to
get this restaurant open. I don’t care if there
is no elevator, we’ll carry it up the steps.
We put the restaurant back together in three
days. ... I broke my toe moving the grill.
But my grandmother got it. That is kind of
what happened with COVID.”
But despite COVID and all the hardship
it has entailed, the 75th anniversary cele-
bration will go on — albeit a bit more qui-
etly. Plans call for scratch-off tickets to
dine-in and take-out customers for prizes
to include free desserts, bowls of chowder
and gift certifi cates. One day a month, 20%
from takeout orders will be dedicated to a
local nonprofi t. And, coming soon, guests
can expect a special beer and T-shirt off ered
in collaboration with Rogue Ales, as well
as 75th Anniversary T-shirts.
“We just as a family did it, Cindy said.
“My granny would be down there expect-
ing us to do exactly what we are doing. She
would be really proud.”
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