Sara Roth

The first thing you notice when walking into Common Table is the 20-foot-long black walnut table, which runs the length of the new non-profit café on Oregon Avenue. The restaurant, which occupies the former Cork location, has been open for just over a month. Yet, with minimal promotion, save a few articles (we wrote about the enterprise back in August) and some Facebook activity, the café has been packed for both lunch and dinner nearly every day of the week.

I have recently been contemplating cutting meat out of my diet. It seems, however that the restaurants that have opened as of late in Bend are meat-centric, and truthfully, I'm elated. Because that's the only excuse I can muster for why I ate three of the largest ribs I've ever seen on top of wolfing down a giant Hungarian sausage in one sitting last week.
The gluttonous meal I'm referring to took place at the old Cheerleader's Grill and Sports Pub location on Highway 97, which was recently taken over by Taylor's Sausage, the purveyor of 80 different types of sausage in addition to ribs, bacon, hams, smoked turkey, jerky and beef snack sticks. Taylor's Sausage, a five-generation family operation now run by brothers Terry and Scott Taylor, is based in the tiny town of Cave Junction in Southern Oregon, but has a reputation that spans the West Coast.

I have recently been contemplating cutting meat out of my diet. It seems, however that the restaurants that have opened as of late in Bend are meat-centric, and truthfully, I'm elated. Because that's the only excuse I can muster for why I ate three of the largest ribs I've ever seen on top of wolfing down a giant Hungarian sausage in one sitting last week.