Madras Pick Me Up: Break up your Portland drive at Great Earth Natural Foods | The Source Weekly - Bend

Madras Pick Me Up: Break up your Portland drive at Great Earth Natural Foods

Madras gets all hippie with Great Earth Natural Foods, a coffee bar/bakery/eatery/booze shop.

It's hot, we're both tired and we still have 2-plus hours of driving left. While the Madras taco options are plentiful, caffeine and snack spots have been scarce. Until now!

Great Earth Natural Foods, situated on D St. on the southbound section of Hwy 97, basically saved our lives this weekend. Tasty and budget-oriented (iced Americano and oatmeal, golden raisin and sunflower seed cookie for $3.15).

The cafe/natural food grocer bakes cookies and savory treats, builds sandwiches like "The Dakota" (turkey breast, havarti herb cheese, mayo, lettuce and tomato on harvest seed bread) on house-baked bread and slings the kinds of wine, soda and snacks you'd normally find at Natures or Whole Foods. Impressive—especially so for a town better know for its carnitas than its cafe au lait.

The grocery portion of Great Earth was stocked with rows of wines, snack foods and other various sundries—a good option when you realize that you forgot to stop at Trader Joe's on the way out of town. 

We've driven past the sign for Great Earth a few times now but it always seems to be closed (closed Sundays!). Glad we got to stop in, refuel and find another positive trip-breaker-upper for our drives north.