Owning and operating a restaurant is an undertaking often fraught with as much peril and heartbreak as satisfaction and success. Orchestrating two is beyond sane for most restaurateurs.

Don and Julie Shaw are notable exceptions. Flashing his trademark ready smile, Don Shaw claims the Long Beach Peninsula’s streets are safer because he’s inside cooking, cleaning and chatting with customers much of the time. He and his wife own a couple Peninsula restaurants: Don’s Portside Cafe & Pizzeria (303 First Ave., Ilwaco, Wash., (360) 642-3477) and the Loose Kaboose Diner (4514 Pacific Highway, Seaview, Wash., (360) 642-2894). You’d be hard-pressed to find a more unlikely, but still complementary, pair of eateries.

An elongated establishment painted bright yellow, blue and mauve, Don’s Portside doesn’t serve dinner – not enough evening traffic, according to Shaw. Instead, the restaurant is open every day from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., and breakfast is a specialty. The Loose Kaboose, which is located a few miles north and shares the same menu, is known more for its noontime and evening fare. Oh yeah, and the name’s appropriate: The Kaboose occupies an actual retired railroad caboose.

Breakfast probably is the least challenging meal for any restaurant sporting a competent kitchen. There’s only so much to master and, really, how hard can it be to pan-fry eggs and griddle hotcakes? Even eateries that offer more exotic a.m. fare are still dealing with most of the basic breakfast ingredients.

Don’s throngs serve testimony that this place has morning meals down pat (as noted in this column a couple weeks ago). Eggs are cooked correctly, hash browns taste fresh and crispy and omelets are packed with enticing fixings. As befits a restaurant located a short seagull’s flight from Ilwaco’s harbor, ocean and bay bounty shows up here and there in preparations such as the Seafood Scram, a triple-egg saute embellished with oysters, salmon, halibut and shrimp, as well as veggies and melted cheddar. For pancake fans, best of all may be Plattercakes, fluffy plate-sized buttermilk flapjacks available with cranberries, blueberries or pecans. They’re almost sweet enough to forego using maple syrup, and a couple of these golden-griddled dandies will satisfy most appetites.

Early birds score prized table seating in the diminutive but cozy sidewalk-facing dining room or plop down on stools facing the old-fashioned serving counter. Particularly on busy weekends, later arrivals are relegated to a backroom dining area. Gracing the walls in the front section of the restaurant are fun-to-look-at historic photos, including a fuzzy image of a crusty-looking gent standing beside a prized sturgeon that’s almost as tall as he is. But more than anything, the Portside’s low-ceiling L-shaped innards look and feel unaffectedly retro; eating here affords a flashback to a time before fast-food drive-throughs and multiple-choice McBreakfasts.

It’s a given: A.m. dining at Don’s is pretty much a slam dunk. Do dinners at the Loose Kaboose exemplify the same care and kindly touch?

Open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. (until 9 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays), this roadside attraction restaurant near Seaview’s north end is a trip for train buffs. Railroad songs (think: “The Rock Island Line”) play continuously on the sound system, and a G-scale model train runs on overhead tracks that circle the inside of the caboose and tunnel in and out of the walls of a four-table adjacent dining room. A potpourri of train memorabilia furthers the railroad theme; waitresses even wear cute striped engineer caps. More of an attention-getter are the dollar bills twisted into sundry shapes – a kind of money origami – suspended from the ceiling.

Evening fare at the Kaboose is oriented to the meat-and-potatoes set and fried fish aficionados. A first bite of an ample slab of meat loaf suggests the kind of homey goodness that an engineer, a conductor or a brakeman might appreciate, especially if they fancy thick brown gravy and pillowy mashed potatoes (don’t bother ordering the commonplace “Stud” fries). Touted chowder is requisitely rich and creamy, but pan-fried crabcakes, although thick and substantial, taste only faintly of shellfish.

Seafood baskets and fish fries, all the rage at the Kaboose, are guaranteed to sidetrack even the heartiest appetite, and half- and full-pound orders of ling cod and halibut are favorites. While lighter-appetite types (read: normal eaters) might opt for an eight-ounce salmon filet, dedicated noshers unintimidated by cholesterol overkill have been known to knock down a large Captain’s Plate stocked with four oysters and a like number of prawns, chunks of halibut and cod, a crab cake and a half pound of clam strips.

Come time for dessert, taking center stage (at the Kaboose and the Portside) are cheesecakes and pies – best of the bunch is an oven-warmed slice of Coastal Fruits pie packed with strawberries, raspberries and blackberries, along with rhubarb and apples. Try it topped with a generous scoop of ice cream.

Kitschy decor aside, the Kaboose and Don’s are about as untrendy as restaurants can be. There’s no scene or inventive food at either eatery, just comforting wholesome grub served in settings that would make anybody’s grandparents proud. The kitchens at both establishments take customers’ appetites seriously, which is why I intend to feast on another order of Plattercakes next time I’m in Ilwaco.

Contact the Mouth at The Daily Astorian, P.O. Box 210, Astoria, OR 97103, phone (503) 325-3211 or e-mail mouth@dailyastorian.com