That, and the clam chowder.

Despite its strange come-on of Tussaud-style waxworks and lately departed movie-star whales, Newport is a working-class town, and that is the true charm of its waterfront. People aren't canning fish or working crab pots to be colorful. They're doing it because it's their life. Mo's reflects the town's vital blend of elbow grease and rough-cut oceanside romance. That person sliding next to you at one of the original restaurant's battered share-a-tables might be a fisherman's wife or a tourist from Taiwan or a logger in for the day from Philomath or a freshly minted high-tech millionaire dressed down for the occasion. It's all the same to the waitresses, who treat everyone with the same brisk efficiency and hurried friendliness. People work hard at Mo's, as hard as the rain-slickered men and women gutting fresh fish on the dock or guiding their boats in and out of the harbor, and they don't hide the labor.

It's been that way for a long time. Mo Niemi was 79 when she died in 1992, a half-century after she started serving her hot bowls of chowder at a Newport diner called Freddie & Mo's. Two years later, in 1944, she opened the original Mo's Restaurant alongside the canneries and docks of Newport's busy bayfront, and a legend was born.

The Mo's empire stretches from Cannon Beach in the north to Florence in the south. A post-and-beam, Northwest-modern outpost sits shoreside in Taft, at the south end of Lincoln City. And perched above Devil's Punchbowl in Otter Rock, about 8 miles north of Newport, is the crookedy one-room wonder called Mo's West, a shoulder-to-shoulder beach shack that feels like it belongs on the set of Robert Altman's "Popeye" movie. A seasonal pleasure, Mo's West has just closed until February.

But the main action's on the old Newport bayfront. The original Mo's is cramped and cluttered and dark and on the wrong side of the street for looking out the window, but is worth visiting for its history and its unpredictability. You never know who's going to get the chair next to you at one of the communal tables. Its other advantage: If somebody in your party simply must have a burger and fries, or is partial to the deep-fried lure of onion rings or fish and chips, he can get them here.

Mo's Annex, across the street, is much bigger and airier. And it hangs out over the waterfront to offer some truly spectacular views of the best this harbor has to offer, from the graceful curve of the bay bridge to the squawking of seagulls going nose-to-nose with you through the plate glass windows. So you can't get a burger here in the Annex. Why would you want to?

Why, in fact, would you want to get anything but the clam chowder? That's what Mo's has always been known for, and that's what it continues to do best. A simple, creamy, New England style that is studded with potatoes and is neither too thick nor too thin, Mo's chowder ($2.95 a cup, $3.95 a bowl, $10.95 for the capacious family style serving) is a monument to the pleasures of simplicity. The clams are generous, the butter is real, and if you order it in the big, family-style bowl you create an instant sense of group well-being. No two chowderheads will ever agree on what constitutes the perfect chowder, but few will disagree that this is a good one. It's a chowder to warm you when you're chilled and refresh you when you're warm.

The best accompaniment to the chowder is another monument to simplicity, the $3.95 dinner salad. (It or a cup of chowder is included with a seafood sandwich or dinner order.) Three things go into this salad: a mound of crisp chopped green cabbage, a thick glob of ranch dressing, and a generous garnish of peeled bay shrimp. The proper procedure is this: Two bites of chowder. One bite of salad, being careful to include some of each of its three elements. A pull from your glass of beer, perhaps the sturdy Mo Ale, made for Mo's by Newport's Rogue brewery. Repeat until done.

The grilled cheese sandwich ($3.95) is simple and exemplary, sure-fire for kids and satisfying for adults who still like to dip their bread in their soup.