🛒 How PDX Restaurants Works

Everything you need to know about using this website — comparing prices, reading the map, building your shopping list, and what is coming next.

📈 Compare Prices

The Compare Prices page is the heart of PDX Restaurants. You build a shopping list and every dining restaurant near you prices it side by side.

Building your list

  1. Restaurant (optional) — type a restaurant like Denny's or leave it blank for any brand.
  2. Size (optional) — the plate size, such as Dinner, Lunch, or Appetizer.
  3. Item (required) — the dish you want: Prime rib, Pho, Fried chicken.
  4. How Many (required) — the quantity you want. If you want two steaks, put Dinner in Size and 2 in How Many. If you leave this blank the page will ask “How many ____ do you want?” with the name of your item filled in.
  5. Press Add to List. Repeat for every item in your cart.

Copy items from a store’s website

Click the emblem to the left of any restaurant card on Compare Prices to open that store’s website in a new tab. Copy whatever you want from their site — the brand, size, item name, and how many — then paste those details into the Brand, Size, Item, and How Many boxes on Compare Prices and press Add to List. Your PDX Restaurants tab stays open, so you can switch back and pick up exactly where you left off.

Reading the results

After you enter your Zip Code, adjust the Distance Radius, and press Find Dining Restaurants & Compare, each store in the map area gets a card. The cards are accordion drop-downs: click any store to expand it and see every item in your list with its price at that store. The store with the lowest total is highlighted in green.

Tip: Use the Expand all / Collapse all button in the results header to open or close every restaurant card at once.
🛒 Chain Store Pricing Is Location-Based

Chain stores adjust prices based on neighborhood demographics and local store operating costs:

  • Demographic Pricing: The same chain (like Mezcaleria) may offer different everyday prices depending on the neighborhood. For example, the same steak dinner might sit at $5.25 at the 82nd & SE Powell (poorer neighborhood, homeless communities) location, while averaging around $6.00 in suburban areas like Tigard (richer communities, less homeless).
  • Unadvertised Door Busters: Stores (especially Shari's) frequently feature “Door Buster” meat offers that are not listed in their happy-hour boards. They package a limited batch of meat and put it out on the shelf. Those packs are not in the store’s sales flyer. Once they sell out, they are gone until the next unannounced batch. Current examples:
    • 2.25 lb packs of ground beef for $12
    • $5 racks of chicken legs
    • $5 racks of chicken thighs

How PDX Restaurants Helps You Save

PDX Restaurants lets you compare these exact localized differences side-by-side so you can choose whether saving a few extra dollars is worth visiting a nearby dining room or grabbing limited-time door-busters before they sell out.

🗺 The Interactive Map

When you press Find Dining Restaurants & Compare, a floating map appears in the corner of your screen. It shows every dining restaurant in your area as a red pin. The map and your shopping list results are connected — here is how:

➖

Zoom Out (minus)

The map shrinks, covering a larger area. More restaurants appear. Your Distance Radius increases automatically. More restaurant cards show up in your shopping list results.

➕

Zoom In (plus)

The map enlarges, covering a smaller area. Restaurants outside the view are removed. Your Distance Radius shrinks automatically. Fewer restaurant cards in the results.

👆

Pan / Drag

Click and drag the map in any direction to look at a different neighborhood. Stores are added or removed as they enter or leave the visible area.

↻

Update Map Area

While you zoom or drag, the navy bar says nothing. When you stop, an “Update Map Area” button appears. Click it to refresh the store list and shopping carts for the new area.

Moving and closing the map

  • Drag the navy bar at the top of the map to reposition the panel anywhere on your screen.
  • The ― button collapses the map down to just its navy bar. Click it again to restore it.
  • The × button closes the map entirely. To bring it back, press Find Dining Restaurants & Compare again.
Remember: Everything about the map — zooming, panning, and radius — directly changes which restaurants appear in your shopping list results. Think of the map as the control panel for your restaurant list.
🏪 Browse Store

On the Compare Prices page, every restaurant card has two copies of that restaurant’s emblem. The emblem inside the card identifies the restaurant. The matching emblem to its left sits outside the card border and opens that restaurant’s own website.

How to use it

  1. Press Find Dining Restaurants & Compare so the restaurant cards appear.
  2. Look to the left of a store’s emblem — for example, the Denny's logo on the Denny's card. You will see the same emblem again, just outside the card.
  3. Click that left emblem. The store’s website opens in a new browser tab.
  4. Copy the items you want from that store’s site — brand, size, name, and how many. Switch back to the PDX Restaurants tab and paste those details into Compare Prices, then press Add to List.
  5. Your PDX Restaurants tab stays exactly where you were on restaurantspdx.com. Close the store’s tab, or click back to it, to pick up where you left off.
Tip: Clicking the emblem inside the card still opens and closes that store’s price list. Only the emblem to the left leaves the page to visit the restaurant.
👤 Login, Free & Pro Tiers
Coming Soon: Login for both the Free and Pro tiers is coming soon. Until that is built, you can still try History on this site. When login ships, every Pro account starts with a 30-day free trial. We do not collect payment information until after the trial, if you continue with PDX Restaurants Pro at $10 a month.

What is planned

  • Free Tier — Compare prices, browse store websites, and use the map with no account required. Privacy-first: nothing is tracked or saved.
  • Pro Tier ($10 a month) — History of the stores you search, an inventory of items you buy (any product a store sells, not only food), and those lists stay connected to Compare Prices. Every Pro user gets a 30-day free trial. Payment information is not collected until after the trial, if you choose to continue.

There will always be a fully functional free version of this website.

📅 History

History is a PDX Restaurants Pro feature. It is $10 a month. Every Pro user gets a 30-day free trial. We do not collect your payment information until after the trial, if you continue with PDX Restaurants Pro.

The History page and the Compare Prices page stay connected. What you do on one auto-fills the other.

Recent stores

Stores you save appear here, most recent first, with the address on the left. On the right:

  • Green check — send that store to Compare Prices. It stays on Compare Prices for this shopping session even if you move or zoom the map. It does not go away until you log out.
  • Red X — remove that store from History.

On Compare Prices, the same green check next to a store means “save this to my History list.” The red X next to the store removes it from History.

Inventory

Items you save — including the brand — appear here. This list is not limited to food. Whatever the store is selling can go in inventory. On the right:

  • Green check — add that item to your Compare Prices shopping list so you can buy it again.
  • Red X — remove it from inventory.

On Compare Prices, the green check next to a product saves it to History inventory. The red X next to the product removes it from inventory.

Dining restaurants on this map

PDX Restaurants is for sit-down dining only. The map and price cards cover rooms like Denny’s, Shari’s, Mezcaleria, Screen Door, Luc Lac, Oswego Grill, Stanford’s, Banning’s, and the other Portland-metro restaurants listed for Portland, Gresham, Clackamas, Tigard, Lake Oswego, King City, and Vancouver.

  • Diners and comfort rooms: Denny’s, Shari’s, Heidi’s, Banning’s pie house, Babica Hen brunch.
  • Neighborhood kitchens: The Observatory, Screen Door Eastside, Lechon, Luc Lac, Queen Mamma’s Kitchen.
  • Grill and steak: Oswego Grill, de Fuego, Stanford’s, Stone Cliff Inn, Blue Pine Grill, Kona Grill.
  • Mexican and Latin dining: Mezcaluna, Mezcaleria, Margarita Factory, Las Brasas, DOSALA.
  • Waterfront and evening rooms: Cecelia, Waterfront Taphouse, On the Waterfront, Wahiana Tiki Bar.

McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, Taco Time, Wendy’s, Burgerville, and other fast-food chains stay on pdxfastfood.com. Food carts and food trucks are left off this map.

📄 Other Pages

Compare Prices (landing page)

Compare Prices is the landing page for PDX Restaurants. Build your shopping list, find local stores, and compare prices side by side. The PDX Restaurants logo at the top of any page brings you back here.

History

A Pro page ($10 a month, with a 30-day free trial and no payment information collected until after the trial). It lists the stores you saved and an inventory of items you buy. Green check and red X keep it in sync with Compare Prices.

How It Works (this page)

You are here! This page explains every feature on the site, how to use the map, and what is coming next. We update it as new features go live.

Expansion

This website was made for the metropolitan cities of Portland, OR, Clackamas, Gresham, Lake Oswego, Tigard, King City, and Newberg. As you give me feedback on surrounding cities and their zip codes, I will add them and edit in the stores for those cities and zip codes. The website is only as big as the feedback you give me about where you want it served. Should this website be successful, I will build other like websites for city areas outside the metropolitan cities. Also, at some point when I get PDX Restaurants (restaurantspdx.com) fully operational in all that you see, a Spanish version of this website is coming.

Spanish version coming soon

Contact & Store Services

Reach Roger Hall by phone, text, or email. Send general feedback, report a problem, or ask about listing your restaurant on PDX Restaurants. I also assist local restaurant owners with web design, menu setups, and finding the best Point of Sale (POS) system tailored to your dining room’s workflow and checkout needs. Go to Contact.

💡 Quick Tips
  • Your Zip Code is remembered between visits so you do not have to type it again.
  • Use the GPS button to let the browser find your location automatically.
  • Stores discovered by Google Places (when you pan the map into a new area) are added to your results automatically. They use estimated pricing until a live data feed is connected.
  • All prices shown right now are sample data. Real store prices will be connected as we partner with each retailer’s data feed. Kroger (Shari's, QFC) is the first planned integration.
🌱 PDX Restaurants is free to use right now. Until all pages are completed, every feature on the site is available at no cost. Enjoy it, send feedback, and help us build the tool Portland diners deserve.