Monica Sander’s battle against Spokane Valley’s crazy cupcake craving

I was sad to see two Valley hospitality establishments did not make it into the 2012. Both Victoria’s Espresso on Pines and T Prano’s  on Sprague near Bowdish have been around for perhaps as long as 10 years ( though T Pranos was known nearly all that time as Pinnochio’s.) Small independent eateries are like marriages in that they often dissolve after years of weathering the trials of life.

On a brighter note, Monica Sanders and her Love at First Bite  cupcake bakery just down Sprague a ways from T Pranos is going like a batter out of hell cooking up as many as 20 dozen each day. Elaine and I stopped in Saturday around 2 in the afternoon and found her display case nearly empty as she appeared from the back with a batch of freshly baked  Red Velvet reinforcements which another waiting customer and I snatched  two of before they could take their  place on the front lines.

It has been an ongoing battle each day to keep enough of her sweet ammo stocked up to meet  the onslaught of daily desserters  who come in each day seeking her little nummy-nummer bellybombs. She told us that since this was her first year she did not know what to expect and was told not to expect much in January. But it turns out she is doing way better than she or anyone else guessed that she would and has been caught on more than one occasion with her apron  down.
I guess I have been in La La land these past few years and was not aware that cupcakes have been making a run on doughnuts for the top pastry snack. Saturday’s outing brought me up to speed fast. On the one hand I was flabbergasted that this one-woman shop tucked away in an easily overlooked strip-mall location could sell so many cupcakes by 2 in the afternoon.
On the other hand, as I devoured this small but heavenly gourmet-level snack that only cost $2.50, I could see why cupcake shops like Monica’s have sprinkled across America in recent years. And on a final hand (if one is allowed to have more than two), I learned that the Spokane Valley has a very crafty and talented soldier fighting keep up with our demands, helping us to win the cupcake war but perhaps not so much with our battle of the bulge.

Monica Sanders, a Columbian native married to a Valley firefighter, said her husband inspired her to create a job she loved showing up at each day. Though she does not have a website, her Facebook page has 1,131 fans that get daily updates on the twelve flavors, out of 80, that she baking that day.

We had to take a few home. Clockwise and tummyfoolish: guava cheesecake, lemon huckleberry cheesecake,german chocolate and red velvet. They ate as good as they looked.

Facebook page: Love @ First Bite

Caruso’s Sandwich Company in the Spokane Valley has lot’s of company

Caruso's Sandwich Company is nestling in at a building the Valley has been dining at since 1965. Located at the corner of Argonne and Montgomery, it is in the heart of the Valley's most intense culinary beat. If I was told I had to pick a two-block area in the Spokane Valley where I would be forced to dine every night for the rest of my life, this would be the spot. Across the street to the north lies a Pizza Hut, Ambrosia Bistro, Subway and Panda Express. Just to the south soar the towering signs of the behemoths of fastfood including Jack, Wendy, BK and McDonald's. Given that Longhorn Barbeque and Timber Creek Buffet are also in the hood, I could easily spend all eaternity dining around this cornucopia of eateries.

To compete in this mad melee of marketed meals Caruso's has sunk a lot of bread into the old and venerable building. Some of it went into this unusual little statue/art piece between the building and the sidewalk on the Argonne side. Around the corner on the northside of the building they put in a raised concrete patio with an outdoor gas firepit covered by what is left of the old carport that served for years when the building housed the A & W Rootbeer stand.

Converting the interior from Scotty's Bar and Grill, the building's most recent occupant, to the stylish sandwich shop it now is , took the most serious amount of lettuce. Gone are all traces of the former bar and everything has been redone, costing somewhere between 200k and 300k, I would guess. They are going to need a lot of dough to raise that kind of bread. While Caruso's is not a mint, they do indeed knead their dough each morning and make their own bread fresh from their secret recipes and I can testify to the tastiness of their sourdough variety.

As tasteful as the remodel project was done, the Cordon Bleu sandwich I had there recently was done even tastier. However, like remodelling these days, Caruso's sandwiches are spendy. A half sandwich is around $6 and a whole is $12 which is more than you would spend at a sit down restaurant. But most restaurants don't make this good of a sandwich, certainly the sub store across the way does not. Caruso's also serves pizza and breakfast as well as beer and wine which makes them unique with the speed and casualness of a fastfood plus the quality and variety of a good restaurant

But will this newcomer in the old building make it in today’s vast and competitive hospitality trade that is so well represented in the surrounding neighborhood? While most people love to play armchair restaurant owner  and believe they know all the moves new places should and should not make, I am agnostic which means I don’t know. It is a lack of false pride and know-it-allness based upon having owned and operated one for four years in sickness and in health. But I do know this property and  its history very well. Maybe there are hints about the future in the past, maybe not.

In 1965, one of the three Armstrong brothers who operated the  first national burger franchise business in the Spokane Valley, A & W, hired my dad  to put in the foundation to the building. My dad and his partner, Don Barden, had been running their sub-contracting company, Custom Basements, for three years at the time. Dad has been retired for nearly 13 years now and Don Barden has  passed away. I know A & W preceded McDonald’s in the Valley because Dad put in the foundation for that franchise’s first Valley location on Sprague across from U-City when I was in about 4th or 5th grade.

At their peak, the Armstrongs had five A & W’s in the Valley from Greenacres to Dishman. The Argonne store prospered and they called upon Custom Basements again in the summer of 1975 to install the foundation  for the eating area they were adding on to the west side of the drive-in. Since it was a summer construction project, I worked on the job myself. To call my father frugal, would be like calling Bill Gates wealthy. He still takes pride retelling the story of how he pulled off and reused the original footing formboards that had been buried in place for ten years to save the Armstrongs a few bucks. “They were a little soggy after all that time, but they worked fine,” Dad told me recently when I quizzed him about his history with the building.

For one reason or another, the A & W at the corner of Argonne and Montgomery did not make it out of the 80′s, nor did the other A & W’s run by the Armstrongs. In 1989 a guy who I had gone to school with from 3rd grade , Terry Mazzie, was hired by new owners to convert the A & W into a Wolffy’s. His construction company gave the building its second major remodel, updating it to an older burger selling era, the one just before the one  it had originally been built for. Through the 90′s Wolffy’s sold old-fashioned burgers and shakes the way they did in the 50′s.

Then around 2002 another friend of mine, Del Stratton, was hired to convert the premises from its Wolffy’s trappings into Scotty’s Bar and Grill. I watched this transformation fairly close since I was in the business at the time and Scotty was often at my business. He told me it cost $250,000 to give the place its third setting in 37 years. Though Scott Reckord  left that business not long after he and Patty opened it and went on to start up Sullivan Scoreboard with his new partner Deanna, Scotty’s made it for approximately 9 year’s before following Wolffy’s tracks down the trail of broken dreams and financial setback.

I don’t know who the Caruso people hired to complete this most recent do-over, but I know enough to know that they did a good job and that it cost a fair to middlin’ amount. Is the fourth time the charm? Most armchair owners would say the location is jinxed since three businesses ended there. But I don’t know.

It reminds me of another location in the Valley that my Dad and his partner also put in the foundation for back in the 60′s. Having stewarded their profits wisely through the years, by 1968 they were able to buy the old Torrey’s Lockers property at the corner of Sprague and Moffit and build a building for Mr. Steak. For 20 years that national franchise stayed and paid the rent, but then they left and were followed by a succession of forgotten ventures. By the time Mike Robb and his family tied up their Iron Horse there, the place had earned the reputation as a loser. That was about 12 years ago and the Horse is at full gallop.

So it seems to me that Caruso’s has a good shot. I know they have found a worthy building that has a rich history serving the hungry Valley well, built and rebuilt through the years by hard-working guys like my Dad and Terry and Del who aren’t afraid to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty and then go into places like A & W and Wolffy’s and Caroso’s where they wash those hands and sit down for a good lunch.

(Well actually, Dad was too frugal to take the time to eat lunch at a restaurant or drive-in on a work day. He never took more than a 30-minute break to eat the lunch my mother prepared for him. But that is why he has been retired all these years and still owns the building at Sprague and Moffit along with other investments that allow him to travel with Mom and pick up the tab when he takes his family to places like Caruso’s.)

This is an old Valley Trivia piece from a past Scoop newsletter:  Long before the Valley had McDonald’s it had A & W Rootbeer stands and quite a few of them. One was at the current Conley’s Restaurant location next to the White Elephant, one was at the corner of Montgomery and Argonne where Scotty’s Bar and Grille is now located, another was on Trent near Fowler road ,one was just east of Deja Vu(the old Dishman Theater), another was at the current location of King’s restaurant in Greenacres  and the last was located at the Mustard Seed location recently torn down when Winco Grocery opened.

To read more Spokane Valley trivea click here.

A feature story on Sullivan Scoreboard’s start.

One on the Iron Horse.

An incredible gift/furniture shop for the Spokane Valley and a super hero’s mancave

One day last summer our youngest daughter came home and started going on and on about some cool  garage sale she ran across down at 35th and Pierce and was so excited about it she took Elaine down to check it out. Turns out it was far more than a garage sale though there were amazing things being sold out of these people’s garage.Being against all shopping establishments from garages to malls to Ebay and beyond, it wasn’t until last weekend that Elaine finally succeeded to drag me down there.

What I found was a magical spot in the Valley that neither Jacque’s gushing nor Elaine’s many purchases prepared me for. The place had it all for me: a humble carpenter/craftsman/ artist, John Dunning, who works with his wife , Jen, running a little store out of their shop (it was not a garage though how does a teenage girl know the difference?). It is where he labors during time stolen after hours away from his day job. It was full of original pieces of handcrafted art and furniture as well as below-reasonably priced reconditioned used pieces. And then there was the JohnCave that would make both Batman and the Iron Man, as well as every mortal man like myself, as green as the Green Lantern with envy.

At this out-of-the-way little shop at 35th and Pierce, John takes those gifts God gave him, elevating and combining them to produce my favorite kind of art, “carpentry art” (which is a lot better than carpentry ants). By that I mean art that only an artist with carpentry skills can create. Being a carpenter myself, it is art I appreciate because  it requires skill it took years for me to acquire at a more modest  level and also a creativity and artistry I will  never attain.  A guy like me is lucky just to be able to appreciate his art.

This is what I am talking about. One of John's favorite mediums is wine barrel parts and pieces which he says are readily available from the local wineries. What he does with spent wine barrels is beyond craft by a mile or two. It is art. Though my photography is not flattering to John's work, check out the hanging light, the stools, the table , the heart /barrel-strap art piece. It is all a matter of wine barrels + creativity + God-given artistry = great shopping opportunities.

Some more examples of John's talent and creativity and my poor photography.

This is a nice refurbished military desk we picked up for $45 (without dickering). Notice the leather chair in the background. They have a bunch more like that for sale that they found on Craigslist. J.C. Penny's sold them in the 70's and they are all mint like every thing else in the store.

It was funny, while I greatly admire all of pieces on display I was most drawn to the background of half of the store. Elaine, on the other hand, barely noticed anything but all the great items for sale. One side of the store is John's shop area and the other is his mancave. The two pictures spliced together above show opposite ends of the John Cave. On the right is the full kitchen that John did all the work on and the left pic shows the fireplace and mantle he installed. I don't think he made the plasma television himself , though it would not surprise me.

I highly suggest that you check out their blog which has much better photography and displays lots more of the items they have for sale. I suggest even more highly that you go to their Christmas sale this Saturday .

Learn more at their blog.

4 Great bars to join NFL congregations on the Sabbath in the Spokane Valley

Sunday football is the new Monday Night Football. It used to be that bars competed for the Monday Night Football crowd with drink specials and taco bars and $2 foot-long coney dogs.  These days  Monday Night Football business for the bars  is only a wisp of its former self, with patrons having shot their wads on Sunday  sitting with fellow fans in front of their team’s designated plasma, swigging beers and hurling jeers as all around fans of other teams do the same thing. The NFL’s Season Ticket, which costs approximately $3400 a season or $180 a Sunday, has changed the rules for the bar owners and the how American football fans spend there Sundays.

The price can be well worth it considering how huge the NFL has become. Of the 15 most viewed television shows so far this fall, 13 were NFL games (0nly the 1st two episodes of Two and a Half Men could compete). The marketing arm of the league and the networks have made some subtle adjustments in the last few years, turning pro football into America’s past time and baseball a relic of times past. The Season Ticket, which allows bars to broadcast every game being played, was one of those moves that proved the marketers’ savy and the market’s insatiable appetite for pro football.

The hot bed of coals that the NFL is building its fire of popularity on  is the die-hard American adult male fan who latched onto a team during childhood when they became aware of pro football. Often the team they bonded with was going through a dynasty period and had a brilliant leader like Staubach and his Cowboys or Montana and his 49′ers. America’s young boys loved football before they discovered girls and most  remain loyal to their first love. Like  geese, most men mated for life with their childhood teams though seldom having the same luck with women.

For me it was the Baltimore Colts who dominated the 1968 season, the year I turned ten. Football had not exsisted for me before then. But in the fall of my fourth grade I got caught up in the drama of Bubba Smith and Tom Matte and John Mackey  and the rest of that mighty team as they barrelled through all foes. I followed their classic season in Sports Illustrated, Sport and Life magazines, only occassionally getting to see them play because we only got one game per Sunday back then. But I watched them each game through the playoffs and though that year’s Super Bowl III with the Jets cruelly upsetting my new gridiron heroes was my first and worst, I have never missed a Super Bowl since and I remain a Colts fan more than 4 decades later.

Each Sunday at the Spokane Valley sports bars that carry the NFL Season Ticket, grown men who have been wearing their favorite team’s jersey since Santa brought them their first one back in grade school gather to watch their team, many of them still in uniform.  Unlike the frustrating days of their youth, it does not matter if their game is being broadcast locally or not. The Season Ticket bars have their game. It is a life-long dream come true.

The Sullivan Scoreboard was the first place I saw this miracle three or four years ago. Since that first year I have watched it go from a light crowd to standing room only with owners Scott and Dianna Reckord rubbing their hands together with delight whenever the Cowboys and the Vikings and the Steelers play at the same time. These are the kinds of teams that go way back in the lives of the Amercan male.  Winning Super Bowls and producing dynasties starring legendary heroes, teams like the 49′ers and Packers have fans loyal to them and them only which adds to the fun as one group watching their team has no compassion on the next table watching their own favorite team getting whupped.

The Sullivan Scoreboard has perfected this game on Sundays, serving a hearty breakfast menu until 2 and offering a Bloody Mary the size of a lineman’s left butt cheek. The place is  mid-sized, blue-collared and ball capped with a neighborhoodly feel which helps The Scoreboard attain the most intimate and rowdy feel of  the Season Ticket bars. Only an out-of-towner would sit down at the large round table on the south end before a Dallas game if it happened to be empty even an hour before the 10 oclock game which it probably wouldn’t be. The Cowboy fans own that table, while the guys in the purple and yellow jerseys or the black and yellow guys have their favorite places as well. They root enthusiastically when their teams make a big play and sit sullenly when the opposing team does well, usually having to endure a few taunts from nearby tables who take pleasure in their misery.

Bolo’s is another sports bar in the Spokane Valley that has bought the Ticket for years. They also do well and have their share of team tables. One major difference between them and the Scoreboard is that families are welcome at Bolo’s while no one under 21 is allowed at the Scoreboard.  They have a large projection TV that is capable of showing 4 games at once, which reminds me of the bingo player who is able to pay attention to 10 cards at one time. My mind does not work that way but I wished that it did so I could visually snort that much more football into my system . Another difference is that Bolo’s has a breakfast buffet for around $8.

I suppose this screen would be perfect for those with more than one favorite. NFL fans are like college students in that they tend to have only one major with a couple of minors .

True Legends out at Liberty Lake is a newcomer but like with everything else, owner Perry Vinson catches on very quick and he bought the Season Ticket last year, his first year in business. He also bought an $8,000 high-def TV projector  to go the huge screen that came with the building.  While it is not quite as big as the jumbo-trons at NFL stadiums, True Legends is the next best thing to being there.

Being a restaurant, True Legends serves a killer breakfast and is a great place for die hard fans to suggest when the whole family wants to gather for a special occassion like some kid’s untimely birthday party. If you can’t deter them away from celebrating during game time on a Sunday, you can at least try to get them to go out to True Legend’s, where the  dining room,  unlike Chucky Cheese, always has your favorite game on.

Another thing that adds to experience out at True Legends is the ticker tape feed that runs below the screen and keeps updating the latest developements on all the other games.

In the past, fathers went to church and spent the day with their families since the only place they could watch their team would be on local broadcast which everyone had right at home. The Season Ticket which has every team every Sunday has made it much harder for family’s to stay together as Dad is tempted by Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long and the other preachers of pro football. Luckily, The Black Diamond is another Valley newcomer where families can attempt to make Sunday a family day again.

The Black Diamond has 20-some pool tables and an arcade area which can serve as the nursery for the kids while Dad and Mom (more women are being convert to NFLism each year) watch the game. Naturally, the folks are praying the kids will soon understand the meaning of football and accept it as their savior as soon as possible and join the congregation in front of the plasmas. There is no better place for the devout family to worship together than The Black Diamond which also  has a great buffet so the family can also break bread together on the Sabbath.

Praise be ! The Diamond is there for Dad and his delimma. Bring Mom and the kids to the Diamond and keep the Sabbath wholly .... football.

Holly Rock in the Spokane Valley is Open, but is the Spokane Valley?

Robin Tuttle and gang recently took over the premises and what little business remained at the old Hotteez in the Spokane Valley on Raymond just north or Sprague. In a move that I admired and appreciated, they shut down the operation for 2 days in order to deep clean the place as I am positive had not been done since  the Sea Galley days back in the mid 80′s when Elaine worked there.

We stopped in recently on the way back from the WSU/Arizona game down in Pullman. Not being night owls, we took advantage of being out late to check out what the Valley’s first gay bar might look like in the hours after our bed time.

It was mostly as I would have expected from a gay bar recently opened in the Valley, but there were a few surprises. It was fairly slow and the crowd was not over-crowding but they were getting into the scene more than I was prepared for. By that I mean that while it was not a scene out of the movie Cruising, there was plenty of hot dancing and at least one same-sex couple making out in plain and unavoidable view. To further set the alternative lifestyle mood, a few queens with demeanors of  drama occupied a barstool or two.

I had no problem with all of this since I was in a gay bar where I felt it best to live and let live. I am not a critic of gays or their hangouts, but I did not like being frisked on my way in. I was more surprised by this than anything and I let them know it and Elaine actually refused to allow them to touch her when they attempted to pat her down after she returned from the bathroom and wanted to join me . They refused to let her even enter the bar, where I was waiting with a round, to tell me she was leaving.

Elaine called me as she walked across the parking lot to the Monkey Bar and I joined her as soon as I finished my drink. Ironically, the bouncer who frisked her came over too and I had the opportunity to ask him why they thought they had to frisk their patrons and then tell him why I thought it was a terrible idea.

He told me that since Hollyrock was the first gay bar in the Valley and since they had received a few threats ( which I find dubious), they were doing it to protect their clientele. I told him that was BS and unfortunate for everyone. If somebody wants to blow away someone at a bar they are going to do it just like crazies do when they walk into a McDonald’s in California or  an Air Force base in Texas.

On the one hand, I don’t like it on a personal level because I don’t want to go anywhere besides the airport or courthouse that I have to go through security for weapons. Actually, I don’t like going to either one of those places any more than I have to but sometimes I have to. The Holly Rock is sending the message that it is a dangerous place to go even though they are intending to send the message that they are protecting their patrons. Like I said, if someone wants to start shooting up the place, they’ll just start with the guy who wants to frisk them.

Then on a less personal note but still a bit offending, I take objection to the idea that the Valley would be more dangerous for a gay bar than downtown where the gay bars don’t frisk their clientele. We may be further east, but this is not Aryan Nations territory any more than the Northside is less tolerant because it is closer to the backwoods home of the MLK Parade would-be bomber.

All this being said, I can forgive HollyRock for their paranoia and over-zealous attempt to protect their people from the gay-bashing crazies that they fear populate the Valley. The truth is that they are newbies and have the right to make a few innocent mistakes. The trouble is that they don’t have time to make very many mistakes, innocent or not. Opening a new nightclub, gay or straight, is a brutally unforgiving and risky undertaking.

I believe that while they don’t need the intolerant, they cannot afford to not welcome everyone that is tolerant. Frisking everyone who walks in the door will neither deter a terrible hate crime nor welcome the tolerant non-gay crowd which I believe Holly Rock must have to succeed in the Spokane Valley.  The Valley, compared to downtown is the hinterlands as far as the gay nightclub scene is concerned, not because of backward thinking but because of demographics.

I think Holly Rock’s only chance is to welcome everyone that is either practicing an alternative lifestyle or tolerant of those who are. The gay community alone  is not enough to support them, but even if it were why would you want to discourage more business? There are actually a lot of free-thinking people in the Valley, like everywhere in America, who may not live an alternate lifestyle but they might enjoy having the alternative to go there once in a while for a drink or a dance. The Holly Rock needs them to survive and they need to welcome them, not pat them down.

 Read an earlier blog on Holly Rock

Rockford’s gift shop, The Hurd Mercantile, is a gift to the Inland Empire

Over the last 10 years or so that the Hurd Mercantile has been in business, I had never thought to stop in during the countless times I had driven through the quiet farm town of Rockford located about 18 miles south of Spokane Valley on Highway 27. It is nothing against the Hurd, it is just that I abhor shopping in general and gift shopping in particular. Furthermore, normally I am passing through Rockford by myself on business or passing through with Elaine for a day of pleasure on the lake. When I am by myself, the idea of stopping at a gift shop never even enters my head. When I am with Elaine, I have always been able to successfully object to her motion to have our vehicle come to rest in front of the Hurd.

But last Labor Day as Elaine and our daughter, Jacque, and I took a leisurely road trip down to St. Maries to check out the Lumberjack Festival, I finally lost the battle. In years past, Jacque would have been an ally as a child not interested in mozying around a big store, but now she was a young lady who was growing in the womanly arts her mother was constantly teaching her. Like the skills required to spend hours in front of a mirror each morning, Elaine has been teaching her daughters the love of loitering in leisurely luxury at gift shops. The Hurd Mercantile was the perfect setting to further Jacque’s education. I told them to have at it, I had brought reading material and would wait in the car.

But after nearly a half hour I began to worry. I knew they were safe but I wasn’t sure about our savings and so I headed into the Hurd to herd out my lost girls. In spite of myself, I was in awe as I opened the door and began to take in this amazing store with its abundant variety and creative, lively displays spread out over 8,000 square feet and 2 stories. I knew instantly that Elaine would never leave this place empty-handed.

Upon entering the Hurd I realized my girls were lost somewhere deep inside this monstrous building.

I wandered about the myriad of tasteful displays.

I had to begrudgingly admit that this was a creative and fun place to visit.

Finally I found Elaine, happy as a mouse in a cheese factory. But Jacque was nowhere in sight.

A scan of the incredible upstairs toy section did not turn her up.

Finally I found her in one of the Hurd's many tucked away little nooks and crannies with that same "Ain't I a stinker" look on her face.

Finally after what seemed like hours, Elaine showed her daughter how big girls cap off a visit to any good gift shop by putting her purse on the counter and whipping out the plastic. I knew it wouldn't be cheap. But secretly I was glad that this was a gift shop and that she was buying Christmas presents that needed to be bought anyway. It didn't seem to matter to her that she wasn't buying for herself. I think that for women, the purchase is the climax of the stimulating experience of shopping. At any rate, Elaine has been rather passionate about it over the years.

I was just glad to get out and down the road to the Lumberjack festival. But I did drive all the way there the next month to buy the watch that Elaine fell in love with but that I talked her out of buying that day. Being an uncreative and often impassive partner, gift-givingly speaking, I was more than happy to make the trip in order to get the perfect present for Elaine's birthday. Elaine has suffered over the years because of my weak shop drive , but this year The Hurd helped me come through with flying colors.

The Black Pearl Restaurant and Card Room in Spokane Valley

Having opened my own restaurant/nightclub years ago, I cannot walk into a new place without scrutinizing everything and calculating their chance for success. I am also a carpenter/homebuilder and I do the same sort of thing every time I walk into someone’s house for the first time.The new Black Pearl Restaurant and Card Room at Pines and I-90 in the Spokane Valley has some impressive ingredients that may contribute to its long-term success. I hope they are enough to overcome some things I see working against that obvious goal.

Top of the list of things to be impressed by at The Black Pearl is the rich decorum the new owners have sunk a lot of money into. Every surface in the old building has undergone a transformation from the paint on the walls to the coverings on the floor to the trim around the doors to the doors themselves. The furniture, the fixtures and everything else right down to the dishware has been selected to contribute to the overall stylish setting that puts the Black Pearl in rare company in the Spokane Valley.

Another feature The Black Pearl restaurant and card room has going for it is food. I have heard a few disparaging remarks but my experience after three visits is that their kitchen does a good job. The other night Elaine had the Chicken Oscar while my daughter, Jacque, had the Chicken Dane. They were both ecstatic about their meals and ate every bite. I had the barbeque ribs and was a little disappointed. It was not that they weren’t succulent and had great sauce, but rather this time that I had them they were overly fatty as opposed to the first time I tried them there a month or so before when they were great in every way.

The upscaleness of the menu, decor and prices is a feature that is good but could work against their success. While the Spokane Valley needs fine dining  places like The Max and Twigs and The Luxury Box, the truth is that for most us a $70 -$100 dinner date (with dessert and drinks) is about a once a year event. This is the Valley, where Thrift stores are the most prevalent type of retail outlet on Sprague.

Furthermore, I think trying to put the two concepts of “upscale restaurant” and “card room” together  in the average person’s mind is not going to be an easy thing to do. When I think of card room, I think of the old smoky, dingy places like the old joint next PM Jacoys downtown. I suppose card players will have no problem, but the decision where to dine is heavily influenced by the ladies and I saw very few in the Black Pearl’s card room.

The card room’s place in the building is one of my big problems with The Black Pearl as it has been reconstituted. Actually, pretty much the entire layout is a problem. Though hundreds of thousands were spent redecorating and recovering the building’s surfaces, the buildings layout remains exactly as it was before the remodel and it was not a good layout before and it is worse now.

Walking into the building, the first thing seen is the beautiful bar and lounge area. It has always been there but now it has a much more intimate or cramped feel, depending on the crowd, because the old dancing area to the right has been walled off to create the new card room. With large windows and two open passage ways, the partition wall does little to provide any privacy between the lounge and the bright, sparsely decorated card room. It is like those exotic aquarium bars you sometimes see in the movies, only the card players are the interesting creatures on display behind the glass. Personally, I found it more irritating than entertaining.

To the left of the front door is the dining area, I think. That is where we have always been seated anyway, though it does not really feel like a dining area so much as a wide hall way with long luxurious booths along the window wall and nothing along the other side. It is wide open with no coziness or intimacy or even much warmth. Beyond this area is another separate, lonely dining room. That is where the card room might should have gone and then been given a more private feel.

The point is that the Black Pearl’s building is large and strangely laid out since it is the product of something like three different add-ons that served an entirely different business. At one time that business, Mathew’s, was just a restaurant (which is now the bar and card room) that added a nice bar and lounge (which is now the dining area) and then added a niteclub area ( the empty back room). New owners came along and bagged the restaurant and completely switched everything around and never attained any visible signs of success as a bar/nightclub for the many years it kept its doors propped open.

My other problem with the Black Pearl is that it seems like the owner is not running the place hands on. I don’t believe it is possible to open such a complex place, hire some managers and then sit back and think it is going to take off. No one ever cares like the owner  because to every one but them it is just a job. I see a lot of little things that need attention like an incredibly long time between taking orders and delivering meals. While we had that problem, the rest of our service was fine but I have heard more than one complaint regarding the Black Pearl’s service.

One night during their grand opening the sign on the end of their building said “half off the entire menu” and the electronic reader sign on Pines said the same thing but our waiter insisted it was only the entres and not apps and sandwiches or burgers. The next night the sign said all steaks half off, but it turned out they offered just one 8 oz steak for $9 something. I didn’t bother with the $12 bbq rib special they promised on the last night. Little things, but an owner that is sweating out the details notices those things while employees may not care quite enough.

So will the good outweigh the bad at the Black Pearl? I think they will have to fix a few things in order to make a profit. I have heard the owner has deep pockets and he will need them. I know they are not as deep now as they were when he got into this venture. But it is a  beautiful building at a great Valley location where they serve a good meal, furthermore it is locally owned and staffed with people who live here and so I hope the Black Pearl makes the right moves and kicks butt and takes names for years and years.

Not a good sign.

Two new watering holes boring into the Spokane Valley scene, The Ref and Holly Rock

For every Hot Rod Cafe or Cyrus O’Leary’s that shutters its windows after years of glory only to be brought to their knees by the ravages of our reeling recession, there will always be a new place opening with novice owners confident they will not only attain their own glory but ride it to perpetual prosperity. These new owners are always sure they have an idea that the Spokane Valley has been awaiting since the first settlers rode horseback to the Plante’s Ferry trading post for a swig of whiskey and a venison steak.

Right on cue, two newcomers are busy preparing their places of business for Fall openings. I am sure their heads are filled with visions of dancing sugar plums as they spend money hand over fist shaping their dreams into reality. Though I root for them and all new owners , I always fear it may turn out like Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby when she gave birth to a nightmare from hell after expecting a beautiful creation from heaven. As a follower of new openings in the Spokane Valley for several years, I can say that I have seen far more horror stories than fairy tales. But I have got to admit that both new places do have ideas that I don’t believe the Spokane Valley has ever quite seen.

One is only subtly different from the overpopulated Spokane Valley bar scene.  It is going to be a sports bar which we have a lot of in several watered down versions. Sullivan Scoreboard, Bolo’s, Monkey Bar and many others have their walls plastered with plasmas playing all play offs possible, but none of them are what I would consider solely dedicated to being just a sports bar nor are they overly worried about attracting the white-collar and professional fans. This is where the Ref, located in Owens Auction former building at 14208 East Sprague, is preparing to make its mark.

My intel on this new place comes mostly from hearing bits and pieces through the rumor mill for several months and so if it does not open quite like my description, don’t blame me. What I have gathered is that it will be along the lines of Heroes and Legends, slightly up scale with a heavy emphasis on all things sports. The rumors seem likely given the name on the liquor application. Fred and Melanie Lopez, who own the building, applied for their license in early September  which they should have long before they get done with what has to be a rather extensive remodel project. But a recent peek in the windows confirmed they are moving along.

The second new place is not a subtle version of anything existing in the Valley or that has ever existed as far as I know. The new owners here certainly have something original to offer and while the clientelle they intend to pursue has been around since the days when Plants Ferry trading post had an operating ferry, I don’t know if many of them would ever have gone on a public outing to be amongst other like-minded revellers. Perhaps the Spokane Valley is ready for an “alternate life style” bar, perhaps not.

My intel on this place, named Holly Rock, is firsthand, having talked to Robin Tuttle personally during a quick visit on the night they took over the building, which coincidently was where Elaine and I were once ourselves excited, expectant new owners waiting for our  opening 9 years ago to the month. The deja vu I felt on the recent visit did not really date back to then but rather the four previous times I have witnessed this scene since our run ended 5 years ago.

First there was Ripley’s which went RIP after 6 months, then Club Max, 9 months; then Club Edge, one year; then The Fubar, 6 months. The long list of casualties that came in the 20 years between when the original owner, Rose Townsend died and passed the landlordship over to her nephew, Jack Riley, in 1988 and when we opened the Rock Inn is lost to history since the only one who might have kept track was Jack.

Jack, like Rose and Ripley’s and the rest, is no longer with us and there is speculation that this recent development might make a difference in whether or not the new owners will make it. I have always thought that Jack was more of a scapegoat used by disappointed owners and their clients looking for someone to blame. But now we’ll have a chance to find out as  Spokane Valley’s first “alternative lifestyle” nightclub opens at the end of this month.

While I wish the crushing disappointment and financial hardship of opening and abruptly closing a place on niether friend or foe, I know for a certainty that it is the most likely outcome. I  hope fervently for success, however, for both the Ref and Holly Rock and I intend to show them my support and check them out as soon as they open. Though I will probably slip in the back door to our old place and make sure Elaine goes with me.

THIS JUST IN: Since posting the above story there seems to have been an unusual development. For some reason Robin Tuttle seems to be rethinkling going into the old Plantation building. Scott Lane who owns Hotteez on Raymond just north of Sprague has been looking for someone to buy his business for years and then lease them the building so that he can retire. He has been talking to Tuttle and he has been telling people that they have reached an agreement.

I hope it is a good one that Tuttle can do well with. I find it very odd that Tuttle would apply for his license at The Plantation and then get the keys to the building, only to get second thoughts. Normally Jack would have things tied up too tight for a prospective tennant to be able to wiggle away. It was probably a good decision based at least on the condition and layout of the buildings. For being just a nightclub, Hotteez is a much bigger and open building and has been kept up better through the years and has parking and great location.

If I could advise her now that I know that she is not tied to a long term lease anywhere, I would advise her to run as fast she can from this whole idea of owning a nightclub. It is the riskiest of business ventures with the chance of failure hovering right around 98%. If she does not turn away she will almost surely wish she had if not by the end of her first month then by the end of her second. Nearly everyone that I have known that tried the night club game never made one dime and lost in the neighborhood of $200,000. It is one of those things that look like a lot of fun, but that’s because most owners want you to think that they are doing fantastic.

At any rate, the second thing I would advise is that if she has to do this then  get a one-year lease with a series of 3-year leases after that. Don’t buy into thinking you’ll get a better deal with a long term lease. Robin is holding all the cards and can and should drive the deal that gives her the least risk. Scott and Jack have been looking for nightclub wanna be owners for years and they know they are very hard to find. A one year lease let’s the new owner hedge their bet a little just in case things don’t turn out like they hoped.

Holly Rock Update 11/20

Robin and gang recently took over the premises and what little business remained at the old Hotteez building. In a move that I admired and appreciated, they shut down the operation for 2 days in order to deep clean the place as I am positve had not been done since perhaps the Sea Galley left there back in the mid 80′s.

We stopped in shortly after they opened on the way home from the WSU/Arizona game down in Pullman. Not being nightowls, we took advantage of being out late to check out what the Valley’s first gay bar might look like in the hours past our bed time.

It was mostly as I would have expected a gay bar in the Valley that had recently opened, but there were a few surprises. It was fairly slow and the crowd was not crowding out the place but they were getting into the scene more than I was prepared for. By that I mean that while it was not a scene out of the movie Cruising, there was plenty of hot dancing and at least one same-sex couple making out in plain and unavoidable view. To further set the alternative lifestyle mood, a few queens with demeaners of  drama strolled ans strutted about the place.

I had no problem with all of this since I was in a gay bar, live and let live. I am not a critic of gays or their hangouts, but I did not like being frisked on my way in. I was more surprised by this than anything and I let them know it and Elaine actually refused to allow them to touch her when they attempted to pat her down after she returned from the bathroom and wanted to join me . They refused to let her even enter the bar, where I was waiting with a round, and tell me she was leaving.

Elaine called me as she walked across the parking lot to the Monkey Bar and I joined her as soon as I finished my drink. Ironically, the bouncer who frisked her came over too and I had the opportunity to ask him why they thought they had to frisk their patrons and then tell him why I thought it was a terrible idea.

He told me that since Hollyrock was the first gay bar in the Valley and since they had recieved a few threats, they were doing it to protect their clientelle. I told him that was bs and stupid. If somebody wants to blow away someone at a bar they are going to do it just like crazies do when they walk into a McDonald’s in California or Air Force bases in Texas.

On the one hand, I don’t like it on a personal level because I don”t want to go anywhere besides the airport or courthouse that I have to go through security for weapons.

Valley Mission Professional Building Explosion/Fire interupts a quiet little Jack in the Box breakfast

I have lived all but a few of  my 52 years right here in the Spokane Valley. In fact, I have lived 23 of those years at 11518 East Alki, the first 7 of my life and the last 16, but that is another story. The point is I am a Spokane Valley lifer and until today I have never come close to any kind of claim to fame. I have never seen even one of the 15 minutes of fame that Andy Warhol said we should all bask in at one point in our lives. But as the fickle finger of fate would have it, today I at least had perhaps an entire 6 seconds of glory on the local evening news. The funny part to me is that those few moments and how they came to transpire have given me a story that I undoubtedly will  retell with heaping relish for the rest of my life. I still can’t believe how winding and surreal the story line was from the shocking moment I shot myself in the leg with my framing gun last Friday to seeing myself on the 6 o’ clock local Monday night news.

In all the 35 or so years that I have wielded such dangerous tool/weapons as worm-drive skil saws and pneumatic nail guns, I have never delivered unto my personage a serious wound. I have always accredited that to a vivid imagination that has always fearfully invisioned the blade of my saw or the nail of my gun ripping or piercing my soft, sensitive tissue far more easily than the wood I had directed my tools toward. So when I shot myself with a 3 1/4″ nail Friday morning as I reached down to grab the gun I had squeezed between my legs, I refused to believe that I could have crippled myself even though the nail buried into the side of my right knee.

There wasn’t that much pain and so I was hopeful as I hobbled to the van and made my son grasp the head of the nail with pliers and give a hard and fast tug. That is the moment of truth with a nail imbedded in a body part, if the nail comes hard then it is buried in something hard like bone. If it comes quick and easy then it drove into soft tissue. We were both relieved when it came out like it had been buried in soft butter. In fact, we went back to work and worked another hour until lunch break.

I did fine that first hour and was going strong until I got out of the van and headed across the Subway parking lot. In the 7 minute drive from the job to the fast food joint, my leg siezed up and hurt like the dickens. We were planning on staying and eating at Subway but I did not want sit any more than I had to and so we headed back and ate on the way. I had a steep roof to sheet that afternoon and to be honest, every step I took on that roof as pulled up the 4×8 sheets of plywood and then threw them down into place hurt pretty good.

It never crossed my mind to stop and I give my father credit for that. I worked with him for many years and I have never in  all my years in constructtion seen a tougher man. I will never forget as a young boy seeing him suffer a wound in a motor cycle accident that ripped into his legged so severly that it still makes my hiney pucker to this day.  He just winced and never said a word. Another time I saw him bounced a chain saw off his thigh, wrap a rag around and went right on working. My glancing nail wound was nothing compared to that and so I gladly taught my son a lesson in toughness while completing the job we set out to finish that day.

But by the time we went home, my leg was hurting. It was hurting in the back of my calf quite a ways from the wound and so that concerned me a little. When I got up Saturday morning, the calf was really tender. I had been asked by a friend to walk in the 3-mile ALS Walk at Maribeau Park and for some reason I thought would help the stiffness. Elaine was sleeping when I left, and so it would be hours later before she told me how dumb she thought I was. I limped a bit but it was not that bad.

Somewhere about this time I brought the power of facebook into my unusual weekend. I love facebook and am fascinated by its immence power. I contend that facebook is the most important developement to come along since the internet and it is debatable which is more significant. I posted a question about why the back of my calf would  hurt when I shot myself in the side of the knee. I have a lot of friends, and the mother hens came clucking out, warning me that my life could be in jeopardy by a blood cot. I do not mean to belittle them here because I was very moved by them scurrying out of the woodwork so to speak, considering I had never heard from most of them before. It was just a shot in the dark but it quickly went out of my control as my concerned friends threatened to drive over and kidnap me down to the emergency room.

Not wanting to be branded a fool on facebook by this flock of mother hens and risk never being able to seek their guidence again, I beleaguredly made my way into the Rockford Emergency Cinic Sunday morning, only to be told that they could not perform an ultrasound on my leg to determine if I had a clot and so I would have to go to the Vally Hospital Emergency room. Losing my momentum towards this end, I stopped at the house to tell Elaine how my efforts had been thwarted and I was being redirected to the hospital emergency room. That is when she first told me that our flimsy insurance policy had a $1,000 deductable when it came to the emergency room. Just two years before we had spent that amount at the Valley Hospital emergency room to find out that our ailing daughter did not have appendicitous and would be just fine. That took the well-meaning wind right out of my sails and grounded me and my ailing leg right there. I would risk it until the next morning when I could go into our regular doctor’s office when we had better coverage. Besides, by this time I was beginning to abandon the blood clot possibility which I had never bought into in the first place.

But I truly respect each of my motherly hen friends and did not want to suffer any admonishment from a single one of them and so I headed out bright and early this morning with instructions from my major mother hen, Elaine, to call our doctor at 7 and schedule an emergency appointment which she assured me the always kept room open for on their daily schedule. I go out for coffee just about every morning to Burger King or McDonald’s but this morning I went for the Jack in the Box at Pines and Mission because it is right on the way to our doctor’s office.

Remember that I am a blogger-slash-internet goofball and so I looked about the dining room and was delighted to find a corner table with a near by outlet that I could plug my laptop into. So I plugged in the laptop, dialed in the smart phone to the net, layed out breakfast for a picture, ( I shoot before every meal in public like a born-again prays before every meal, always thinking of a possible blog). Then I looked up over my laptop, through a 10″ gap between the posters plastered on the windows in front of me. It was at that moment that I saw a foaming head of white smoke arise from a building  a thousand yards beyond Jack’s window posters. Within seconds, before the white head of smoke had risen 30 feet above the building’s rooftop, a rush of sinister black smoke shot up past the slower light smoke and I grabbed my smart phone and headed to out the door to further investigate, knowing that there was a building going down in a blaze.

Having seen that first smoke shoot up and then going outside and not hearing a single siren, I knew that I was seeing this all unfold from the very beginning, even before the first 911 call. In fact, as I waited on the south side of Mission to cross east on Pines, I saw a cop pull up in the southbound lane of Pines on the far west side preparing to go west down Mission but a pedestrian tapped on his window and pointed to the burning building. He looked and saw the flames, hit his lights and turned across 7 lanes of traffic and shot down Mission and arrived at the scene before the first siren sounded.

In the meantime, I impatientley waited for my side of the light to allow me passage across Pines.  I remember thinking I had the chance of getting one of the videos you see on You Tube or Greatest Home Videos. I bought an Android smart phone to always have that capabillity at all times. And this morning it was about to pay off big time.

This my doctor's building going up in flames.

Click here to see the video.  It appeared on khq and krem news and both stations came by my house to interview me.  While the interviews took at least 10 minutes apiece to film, I appeared for one 6-second sentence in each broadcast. More important to me was my video which was the star of the evening news on both stations in their lead story. (the firey video scene in this news feature was mine.

BTW- I went back to the Rockwood Clinic that afternoon and got a tetnis shot and a clean bill of health.

We say goodbye and thank you as Cyrus O’Leary’s leaves the building

     On August 9th 1982 I took Elaine Clark out for the first time. As a timid, non-ladies man, I felt that I could use as much help as I could get and so I chose Cyrus O’Leary’s for its great food and exciting atmosphere. This was a night  of paramount importance to me, as I had been attracted to Elaine since we were kids. The 4-year-age difference between us, which seemed a huge chasm growing up, magically had vanished that summer when I came home from college to find the pretty little girl was a beautiful 18-year-old young lady, more attractive to me than ever. After a few months of shyly trying to get her attention as we separately attended dozens  of functions and get-togethers at the church we had both grown up in, I finally built up enough courage to ask her out and to my enormous relief and unbearable excitement, she agreed.

     Sitting across the table from each other on that hot summer night with the bustling activity of the packed Cyrus O’Leary’s swirling unnoticed around us, we fell deeply in love right then and right there. I know that for a fact because from that moment on we were as inseparable as smoke from fire. Later as we moved from our amorous meal, we decsended deeper into our own world as we held each other’s hand for the first time and walked down to the billowing, misty Falls and eventually found a secluded dark spot we deemed worthy of our first kiss. Later that evening, after we finally said good-night on her front porch following a barrage of moist kisses and smothering hugs, Elaine went inside and told her sister that she was going to marry me.  Nine months later her prediction came true when I got down on one knee and proposed in her living room. She said yes without hesitating and then asked when. I said I thought the next day would work fine, if she didn’t mind. We eloped the following day, April 26th, at the Wedding Chapel in Couer D’ Alene.

   Flash forward three years to find our marriage on the rocks. Elaine thought she no longer loved me and moved out June 12th, 1985;  by far the worst night of my life.  Though she was gone, I could not let go of her and I fought to win her back with everything I had. I bought and devoured the best book ever written in the history of mankind called  “How to Win Back Your Lost Love.” It was my gospel as I  followed every piece of advice it had to offer, losing weight,getting a haircut, buying a new wardrobe, listening to every word I was lucky enough to get her to say to me as though her every word was the most important thing I had ever heard in my life. To this day I thank God for leading me to that book that taught me how to get back the love that I had squandered. It taught me better than four years in college that you can find the answer to any problem if you can just find the right book.

   She came home one month later and so to celebrate and to try to rekindle our lost romance, I once again sought the help of Cyrus. It was another hot summer night and like three years before, the place was packed and we were obliged to put our name on the waiting list and then patiently do just that, wait. Cyrus has a  lot tables and we were not picky that night, any table in a storm. With my typical male trait of not paying attention to romantic detail, it was momentarily lost on me as the hostess finally came and sat us at the same table we had three years before that first night we fell in love. It was not lost on Elaine, however, as she burst into tears and melted into the realization that we were meant to be. Cyrus had confirmed it.

   That was 26 years and four beautiful babies ago, the youngest of whom is now 16. How could we not go back for one last date when we heard Cyrus would be gone forever after Sunday, September 11, 2011? We went for one last hot, romantic date on Saturday, their last night in business. I thank God and Cyrus, one of the many vessels He used to help Elaine and I come together, then come back together  and then stay together forever.

   Most of all, on that last of many, many romantic nights that  Elaine and I shared together at Cyrus O’Leary’s over the years, I was reminded of and thankful for beyond words that I had been given the extraordinary blessing of being as strongly attracted to and in love with my life’s love as I was on that first date 29 years before. And so now with God before us and Cyrus behind us, we just thank them both for taking such good care of us.

The last supper at our table.We thank God and his helper Cyrus.