Paul Bunyan in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho: Offers Classic, Delicious Food, Questionable Service

Paul Bunyan Famous Hamburgers
602 Northwest Blvd.
Coeur d'Alene, ID

In local burger folklore, it's always Hudsons that gets all the glory. Okay sure, the place has been there serving the same product for a hundred years but so what? Want fries? Too bad - try ordering them and they'll look at you like you just asked for Bald Eagle McNuggets. Take away the "secret recipe" (do I taste horseradish?) hot mustard and ketchup and the burgers become suddenly a little plain. It's so crowded in that tiny joint you have to sit elbow-to-elbow with some less-than-appetizing stranger nearly as old as the place itself. Not for the claustrophobic.

Paul Bunyan must be the second oldest burger joint in town, having been in the same spot since sometime in the fifties. My mother worked there during its glory years when she was a teenager. For years it was the teenybop hot spot, a place for car cruisers to gather. By the time I was a kid, the place was pretty run down, and they demolished and rebuilt about ten years ago. It seems like the place lost a bit of charm after the rebuild - I can remember sitting outside the place at grungy carved-up picnic tables and having corn dogs and vanilla coke in the shade of some kind of dilapidated multicolored fifties plastic canopy structure that would cast odd pink and orange shadows onto the ground. Now the place is rather plain - grey brick, crisp white interior - exactly like the two newer locations in Post Falls and Hayden. However, the giant original iconic sign of Paul himself still stands out front, winking at passersby.