Drop Anchor Bistro: LB restaurant expands to Ilwaco waterfront

Published 4:21 pm Sunday, January 25, 2026

Comfort food in a cozy space

ILWACO — Six years after opening his first restaurant fresh out of high school, Eddie Hillard is at it again.

Hillard, the owner of Drop Anchor Seafood & Grill in Long Beach since 2019, opened a second location in late 2025 — this time in his hometown of Ilwaco, where he was recently elected mayor. Drop Anchor Bistro, located on the waterfront at the Port of Ilwaco, serves breakfast and lunch with a focus on offering both comfort food and a comfortable space for people to gather.

While the two locations differ when it comes to what’s on their menus, Hillard said the through line that they share is “the passion for the people; that’s the core of our brand.” And the response from the community has been “overwhelmingly positive,” he said.

“The first week we had to bring in a couple more tables, and then the second week we needed to bring in even more tables,” he said. “It was a great problem to have, so everybody’s just been really happy with everything.

The bistro is located at 235 Howerton Way SE and is currently open Tuesday through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. It is closed on Monday.

Expanding their footprint

Formerly a Dooger’s location, Hillard and his family opened Drop Anchor in August 2019, just a couple of months after he graduated from Ilwaco High School.

Hillard said he and his family had pondered opening another location in Ilwaco in the past, but it wasn’t something they’d made firm plans for. He and his mother used to walk their dogs along the port’s waterfront and took note of the building.

“It’s so beautiful; inside, outside, great location,” Hillard said. “We’d seen it for sale, so we joked about that for a while. And then finally, several months later, we were like ‘You know what, can we do this? Maybe we can do this,’ and then we did.”

In opening a second location, Hillard said they don’t want to lose the “brand consistency and touch of heart” that the Long Beach restaurant has, adding “the whole idea was to bring that here and create another chill space.”

Having a close-knit staff has been key to creating that atmosphere, Hillard said.

“The more that time goes by, some of the things that stand out is when you find those team members that believe in your brand, that are a part of your family, that show up every day to fulfill the same thing we do,” he said. “Holding onto those people and bringing them into your family is essential; they’re really what make the brand what it is.

The key difference between the two locations is that the bistro in Ilwaco offers breakfast and lunch service, while the Long Beach restaurant is open for lunch and dinner. Being located at the port itself gives the bistro the opportunity to serve local fishermen as they prepare to head out to sea in the mornings, which Hillard said was one of the biggest draws in deciding to move forward with the location.

“There’s not a ton of options in the morning to eat or drink,” he said. “There are some, and that’s awesome, but we just felt like that was one of the bigger things that drove us to want to do early mornings.”

The bistro currently opens at 7 a.m., but Hillard said he expects to have earlier hours depending on the different fishing seasons.

Comfort food

Opening and operating the restaurant in Long Beach for the last six years gave Hillard “a great foundation” in preparing to open a second location, “but there was a lot more to learn from scratch here.” Part of that learning process was building out a brand-new menu for the first time.

“We knew that we wanted to do a lot of our fresh pastries and our sourdough bread and everything,” Hillard said. “We didn’t really have a lot of recipes to work from, so we just started testing.  I mean, we were giving muffins and cinnamon rolls and loaves of bread to all of our staff and our neighbors and just trying to get any feedback — and we’re still always improving it, but we wanted to make sure we were solid to get started.”

Hillard described the menu as consisting of comfort food. Breakfast burritos and sandwiches have been popular in the morning, with breakfast sandwiches able to be made using house sourdough bread, bagels or croissants. Other breakfast items include sourdough french toast, parfaits and frittatas.

Sandwiches and paninis have been a favorite during lunch, including the turkey bacon pesto panini, while Drop Anchor’s chowder is also available and can be served in a bread bowl. Hillard noted that both the breakfast and lunch menu is available from open to close.

Sweets have their place at the bistro, as well — you can’t help but smell the homemade cinnamon rolls upon walking in the door. Cookies are a staple as well, with flavors including lemon cream and white chocolate snickerdoodle. They also feature local cranberries and blueberries.

And a bistro can’t exist without caffeine on-demand.

“We definitely have quite a bit of espresso,” Hillard said. “People really like what they like, so we wanted to make sure that we had a good, quality espresso offering to start. We do like a lot of our cappuccinos and mochas, we have some good blended ones that are fun. [We have] yummy smoothies with fruit and yogurt.

“We also got our beer and wine license, so it’s awesome to be able to have mimosas or the Ilwaco Cider Company. We’ve got their cans, and hopefully between now and spring we’ll have tap towers so we’ll be able to have Ilwaco Cider on draft and other beers.”