Inlander 10/15/20

CITY HALL

Mayor Woodward embarks on a new, uncertain era PAGE 8

FOOD

A look inside Izzy’s Comfort Kitchen in CdA PAGE 33

OCTOBER 15-21, 2020 | STARTING OUR 28TH YEAR!

INSIDE

An exclusive excerpt of The Cold Millions

JESS WALTER His new novel blends local history, unsavory characters and timely politics for an electrifying read

BY DAN NAILEN SPECIAL PULLOUT

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VOL. 28, NO. 1 | COVER PHOTO: YOUNG KWAK

COMMENT NEWS COVER STORY CULTURE

5 8 14 25

FOOD FILM MUSIC EVENTS

31 34 36 38

ADVICE GODDESS I SAW YOU GREEN ZONE BULLETIN BOARD

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EDITOR’S NOTE

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M

ark my words: Spokane is going to make national news this fall, and it won’t be because of the Zags basketball team, Rachel Dolezal or some wingnut politician peddling conspiracy theories. Well, OK, one or more of those may indeed make headlines this fall, but the bigger reason people will be hearing about Spokane is because of JESS WALTER’s new novel, The Cold Millions, which is hitting shelves later this month. This is his first novel since 2012’s Beautiful Ruins spent 69 LETTERS weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. And if early reviews are any Send comments to indication, Walter could have another editor@inlander.com. hit on his hands.

As our culture editor Dan Nailen writes in this week’s cover story, “The Cold Millions is a blend of fact and fiction, and a ripping read full of dirty cops and hitmen, sexy stage actresses and shady club owners, heroic idealists and disturbing double-crossers — all of them trying to make a go of it in Spokane when it was a boomtown in transition.”

Read Nailen’s interview with Walter (page 14), catch up on Walter’s other books and whet your appetite for more with a sneak peek of The Cold Millions.

— JACOB H. FRIES, Editor

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SPOKANE • EASTERN WASHINGTON • NORTH IDAHO • INLANDER.COM THE INLANDER is a locally owned, independent newspaper founded on Oct. 20, 1993. It’s printed on newsprint that is at least 50 percent recycled; please recycle THE INLANDER after you’re done with it. One copy free per person per week; extra copies are $1 each (call x226). For ADVERTISING information, email advertising@inlander.com. To have a SUBSCRIPTION mailed to you, call x213 ($50 per year). To find one of our more than 1,000 NEWSRACKS where you can pick up a paper free every Thursday, call x226 or email frankd@inlander.com. THE INLANDER is a member of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia. All contents of this newspaper are protected by United States copyright law. © 2020, Inland Publications, Inc.

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OCTOBER 15, 2020 INLANDER 3

It's up to us!

The Inland Northwest is lucky to have a diverse community of local businesses.

It’s up to us to keep them alive and thriving! That’s why Live Local INW is launching a new online business directory and marketplace where you can keep discovering new ways to live local.

N O W L I V E AT

LIVE LOC A L I N W.C OM

Pictured: South Perry Pizza

This program is funded by the City of Spokane with CARES Act dollars.

4 INLANDER OCTOBER 15, 2020

COMMENT STAFF DIRECTORY PHONE: 509-325-0634 Ted S. McGregor Jr. (tedm@inlander.com)

WHAT’S THE BEST BOOK YOU’VE READ THIS YEAR?

PUBLISHER

MARY OLSEN SCHUMACHER: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Medical science is amazing, and this reads like a novel — it’s not.

J. Jeremy McGregor (x224) GENERAL MANAGER

EDITORIAL

CALEB KNOX: Deep Kindness by Houston Kraft!

Jacob H. Fries (x261) EDITOR

Dan Nailen (x239) MANAGING EDITOR/ARTS & CULTURE Chey Scott (x225) FOOD & LISTINGS EDITOR

Nathan Weinbender (x250) FILM & MUSIC EDITOR

Derek Harrison (x248) ART DIRECTOR

Quinn Welsch (x279) COPY EDITOR

Wilson Criscione (x282), Daniel Walters (x263), Samantha Wohlfeil (x234) STAFF WRITERS

EDITOR’S NOTE

Normally, we ask our question of the week of people we randomly encounter on the street. But with the coronavirus pandemic, we instead asked our followers on social media to share their thoughts.

TOM DAVIS: I read This Book Is Full Of Spiders. I read it last year too, as well as the year before that, and before that. It’s a tradition. I’ll never not recommend David Wong.

WILLIAM F. JOHNS: Straight Man by Richard Russo because I needed to laugh out loud.

TRENT CODY QUINTERO: William Randolph Hearst: The Early Years.

Young Kwak PHOTOGRAPHER

Caleb Walsh ILLUSTRATOR

Amy Alkon, CMarie Fuhrman, Will Maupin, Carrie Scozzaro CONTRIBUTORS

Lauren Gilmore INTERN

ADVERTISING Kristi Gotzian (x215) ADVERTISING DIRECTOR

Carolyn Padgham-Walker (x214), Emily Walden (x260) SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

Mary Bookey (x216), Jeanne Inman (x235), Rich McMahon (x241), Autumn Adrian Potts (x251) Claire Price (x217), Wanda Tashoff (x222) ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

Kristina Smith (x223) MARKETING DIRECTOR Houston Tilley (x247) EVENTS & PROMOTIONS ASSISTANT

PRODUCTION & SUPPORT Wayne Hunt (x232) DESIGN & PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Ali Blackwood (x228) CREATIVE LEAD

Derrick King (x238), Tom Stover (x265) SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNERS

Jessie Hynes (x231) GRAPHIC DESIGNER Frank DeCaro (x226) CIRCULATION MANAGER Sydney Angove (x242), Charlotte Lepp (x242), Jess Kennedy (x212) ADVERTISING SUPPORT

OPERATIONS Dee Ann Cook (x211) BUSINESS MANAGER Kristin Wagner (x210) ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE

MICHELE SLIDER: So You Want to Talk About Race by Seattle author Ijeoma Oluo.

NANCY ANN SMITH: The Sasquatch Hunter’s Almanac by Sharma Shields. What a wild adventure it was!

HAYLEY OLSON: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, which is a well-written look at the life of the famous Achilles through the eyes of his best friend Patroclus. Not what I would call everyone’s favorite cup of tea given, it depicts Achilles’ and Patroclus’ relationship as romantic, but it’s filled with plenty of emotion and heart.

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BOB JENSON: The King of Elfland’s Daughter. It’s an old one — predates Tolkien, but it is one of the most elegant and beautifully written books I’ve ever read.

SHARON VORE: The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. It’s historical documentation of the epic great migration of Blacks from the South. It’s history that you never learned in school.

CHERYL MCKEEN: Who’s in Charge

by Michael Gazzaniga. Fascinating book on how your brain functions.

JOSEPH EDWIN HAEGER: $50,000

by Andrew Weatherhead. It’s a book-length poem and it’s so dang good. It’s a pitch-perfect representation of what our emotions and brains do every moment of every day. n

Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho (PPGWNI) is diversifying its Board of Directors. health care management, business, or leadership? We would love to connect with you!

Please contact: jointheboard@ppgwni.org

OCTOBER 15, 2020 INLANDER 5

COMMENT | COMMUNITY

FAMILY LAW Divorce Spousal Maintenance / Alimony Child Support Modifications Parenting Plans

Craig Mason

AUTO INJURY • CIVIL LITIGATION

W. 1707 BROADWAY, SPOKANE, WA | 509443-3681

Turns out, some grooms are armed with more than a ring.

#NotInvisible The different meanings of solitude and safety

BY CMARIE FUHRMAN

M

y friend sends me a text with a picture of his daughter being proposed to.

The background is soothing: waterfall, granite, clear pool. But the foreground startles me. The man proposing is doing the traditional things: one knee, ring box open. The woman has her hand to her mouth, eyes wide. Yet that is not what catches my emotion. It is the pistol he has tucked down the front of his pants. The knife on his belt and the knife in a holster across his chest.

I text back: That’s a lot of weapons. Was he afraid she would say no?

6 INLANDER OCTOBER 15, 2020

My friend is White.

His future son-in-law is also White. And according to 2017 Pew Research data, about half of White males (48 percent) own guns and of those, two-thirds cite protection as their reason.

I know the waterfall where my friend’s daughter said yes. I have picnicked there in the spring. The same report states that only 24 percent of non-

White males own guns and 16 percent of White women. There is no data for non-White women.

My father, a gun owner himself, told me that if I ever feel threatened, I should run for the woods. He taught me about wilderness survival. How to find heat even in the snow and which streams to ON INLANDER.COM follow to safety. How game Mandy Manning, the 2018 National trails never go off cliffs and Teacher of the Year, comes out in favor what plants would give me of Washington state’s Referendum 90 sustenance. He referred to requiring schools to teach comprethe wild as a place of solihensive sex education. Find her guest tude. But, as Amy Irvine editorial at Inlander.com/comment. writes in her slim book, Desert Cabal, “Solitude, for women, is a different animal entirely.”

I am reminded of this as I am going down a steep section of a narrow USFS road leading to Whitewater, Idaho, when a man in a jacked-up, tricked-out, candy-apple-red Jeep meets my pickup headlight to headlight and though I tuck in close to the right side of the road to let him pass, he gets out of his vehicle, taps the butt

I tuck in close to the right side of the road to let him pass, he gets out of his vehicle, taps the butt of one of his pistols, smiles and says, “Back up.” of one of his pistols, smiles and says, “Back up.” Which I do, for about a hundred yards, until he walks back to his Jeep and passes me, laughing.

Native women go missing at a rate nearly 10 times higher than that of non-Native women. There is no solitude in statistics either.

Two years ago, in the Frank Church Wilderness, another man, butt of a gun sticking out of the holster across his chest, smiles as he and his companion pass me. Months later I would run into the couple at a wedding and say, “I remember you. You had the gun over your heart.” I ask him why. He replies, “You never know.” His girlfriend shakes her head, says, “I told you,” and walks away.

Some 47,000 Americans are attacked or bitten by wild animals in the U.S. every year. Less than 10 die. Most of the attacks are by snakes, rodents, raccoons and birds.

Native American women are murdered and sexually assaulted at rates as high as 10 times the average in certain counties in the United States — crimes overwhelmingly committed by individuals outside the Native American community. These crimes are particularly likely in remote settings.

Seventy-one percent of White male gun owners cite protection as their reason for owning a gun.

Last weekend, after dropping friends off for a river trip, I drive toward home on a road that takes me through some of the most beautiful landscapes in the Frank Church Front Country.

I drive by aspen and larch bursting yellow. Through my open window I watch silver streams fall through tall drainages. I pass the place where my friend’s daughter said yes when I meet a white Toyota with local plates. As they grow nearer, the driver swerves toward me and I pull fast to avoid his bumper. I press my foot to the brake and stop. I am about to put the truck in reverse and look in the rearview and meet my reflection and remember who I am.

I press the gas and keep driving. Would there be solitude where I stopped? Safety? I never know. n CMarie Fuhrman is the author of Camped Beneath the Dam: Poems (Floodgate 2020) and co-editor of Native Voices (Tupelo 2019). She has published poetry and nonfiction in multiple journals as well as several anthologies.

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OCTOBER 15, 2020 INLANDER 7

CITY HALL

WOODWARD’S SECOND PHASE

After the unexplained resignation of her city administrator, the Woodward administration embarks on a new — and uncertain — era

After 10 months in office, Mayor Nadine Woodward says she’s ready to reorganize City Hall. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

BY DANIEL WALTERS

W

hen Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward kicked off her first year in office, she praised CEOs who “observed and learned the culture of a place before they started instituting changes” and promised she would do the same.

Woodward kept most of former Mayor David Condon’s team on staff and brought on an experienced city administrator, Wes Crago, to be her second in command.

Crago, who spent 16 years as city administrator of the Central Washington town of Ephrata, echoed Woodward’s cautious, methodical rhetoric.

“If there’s going to be changes made, they’ll be something everybody collaborates on, they’d be telegraphed well ahead of time,” he told the Inlander in January. “I don’t like government surprising anyone.”

And for 10 months, as Crago helped lead City Hall through responding to a once-in-a-century pandemic and reacting to protests demanding criminal justice reform, the Woodward administration hewed to that “no surprises” mantra.

That changed late last month when Crago abruptly resigned. The City Council didn’t see it coming and still hasn’t been told what happened.

The city is still in the middle of a pandemic. It still has to find a way to compromise on a long-overdue police contract and ongoing battles over police reform.

The preliminary budget Woodward presented last week defers some of the toughest decisions for later.

But after months of being mired in coronavirus battles, Woodward is ready to start reshaping City Hall according to her vision. But instead of slowing down as the result of the loss of her No. 2, Woodward is talking about making more changes faster.

8 INLANDER OCTOBER 15, 2020

“Now that we’ve been in this time of perpetual pause — in between the phases of reopening — it’s given me time to reflect,” Woodward tells the Inlander. “It’s revealed some areas where I think we can do a better job. Now is the time to start initiating and realigning the organization.”

THE ADMINISTRATOR AND THE AMBASSADOR

Back in late February, Woodward and Crago stood together at a press conference announcing an independent investigation into concerns raised about the Community Health and Human Services department, both framing it as part of their commitment to be candid with the public.

“The community expects the city to be transparent,” Woodward said then.

When Crago himself resigned last month, however, there was no press conference, no press release and no forthcoming explanation.

A public record request for a resignation letter only turned up a late-night email sent on Sept. 23 in which Crago thanked Human Resources Director Amber Richards for “being such a pro in a difficult situation today” and wrote that he would like to “take that opportunity to resign.” He also asked that a reference to his “heart being with smaller with towns” be included in his farewell.

In a Facebook post, Crago described his resignation as “a gut-wrenching decision; painful and disconcerting” but ultimately the right move. He declined to elaborate on what happened.

“We had a conversation,” Woodward tells the Inlander in a phone interview. “And he decided to resign at that meeting.”

But when the Inlander asked her directly if she’d

asked him to resign, she dodged the question the same way that city spokesman Brian Coddington did repeatedly last month.

“He just decided to resign,” Woodward says. “That’s all I can say.”

She hasn’t been any more forthcoming with City Council members.

“No one has shared anything with me,” says Council President Breean Beggs.

Woodward, however, knows first hand how newsworthy the truth behind high-profile city resignations are.

Exactly five years and one day before Crago’s resignation — when Woodward was a TV anchor at KXLY — she called the sudden resignation of Spokane’s police chief after “less than three years on the job” a “bombshell announcement.” Journalists would later uncover public records showing that the mayor’s staff had given misleading statements related to the resignation, and Mayor Condon found himself entangled in the fallout for nearly a year.

And while a city administrator isn’t as visible as a police chief, it’s one of the most influential positions in City Hall. In fact, as the city plans for a national search for the next city administrator, Woodward indicates that Crago’s replacement might often end up running much of City Hall.

“I’m looking for somebody who obviously is a strong leader who is able to oversee operations of City Hall, so I can be the type of mayor that I want to be,” Woodward says.

Where Condon was known as a behind-the-scenes, charts-and-graphs technocrat, Woodward imagines herself as an “ambassador for the city.” ...continued on page 10

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OCTOBER 15, 2020 INLANDER 9

NEWS | CITY HALL “WOODWARD’S SECOND PHASE,” CONTINUED...

Woodward, after all, came in with very little management experience, but had three decades of TV experience interacting with the public.

“I want to be out in the community and visiting schools and talking to constituents and holding forums and talking to businesses. … And I’m hoping that as soon as we’re on the other side of COVID, I can start doing that.”

That doesn’t mean it would all be ribbon-cuttings, she stresses. She says she still has plenty of initiatives that she wants to concentrate on, including around economic development, public safety and homelessness.

So on the one hand, Woodward says “you can’t be completely removed from what goes on in City Hall,” but also says, “I don’t want to be stuck in City Hall on the seventh floor in meetings all day.”

says. “Now that many of us were back to City Hall, we can assess how the year has gone by.”

She says that experience showed what the city was capable of, but also flaws in the existing structure. Without a “real line of succession” to hand off decisions to, she says, leaders were sometimes overloaded. Communications could suffer.

In the same message announcing Crago’s resignation, Woodward also teased a new leadership structure, one that would name specific staffers to problem-solve priorities in specific areas — like public safety, infrastructure and the budget — and be in charge of sharing information about them with the rest of City Hall and the City Council.

“It’s so easy to get stuck in your area, your division, your silo and not know what’s going on across all divisions in City Hall,” Woodward says.

She has her eye on updating the city’s strategic plan — the document that charts out an agreed-upon course with the council.

Beggs, the council president, praises Woodward for improved communications. But that doesn’t eliminate major disagreements.

Last week, her administration submitted the preliminary budget to the council. At first glance, it appears to avoid any major layoffs, despite the anticipation of the pandemic sapping away city tax revenue. It even funds a new economic development division.

But it does that, says Beggs, with “a lot of red ink” and new uncertainties.

“It’s not a balanced budget,” Beggs says. “Typically the mayor gives us a balanced budget, so we’re not dip-

Right up front, Woodward’s budget plans to spend $5 million from reserves — a little over 10 percent of the city’s total reserves.

ON SHUFFLE

The resignation — whether voluntary or involuntary — of Crago only came after weeks of the mayor meeting with 15 high-level senior staffers, particularly those involved in the city’s emergency response to COVID. “I really wanted to take the time to do just a one-andone and just get some reflection from them,” Woodward

10 INLANDER OCTOBER 15, 2020

Wes Crago, Spokane’s city administrator, abruptly resigned last month. DANIEL WALTERS PHOTO ping into reserves.”

Right up front, Woodward’s budget plans to spend $5 million from reserves — a little over 10 percent of the city’s total reserves.

“That’s why you have reserves, right?” Woodward says. “For a rainy day? And if this isn’t an example of a rainy day, I don’t know what is.”

Beggs acknowledges the huge financial challenge this year. But he says the problems with the budget go deeper than that.

There’s nothing, for example, allocated for the city’s potential contribution to warming shelters, which could cost $2 million or $3 million from reserves, Beggs says.

“We didn’t want to put any dollar figures right now, because we’re still working on how we’re going to fund that,” Woodward says.

Additionally, Beggs says the budget uses the public safety levy money intended to pay for new police officers and firefighters to pay for existing officer positions.

“That’s not what the voters wanted,” Beggs says. “They paid extra property taxes to have extra officers and firefighters. They’re not getting that right now.”

The budget also doesn’t fund many of the council’s priorities, he says.

“It’s challenging because it puts the council in the position of being the bad folks that make cuts,” Beggs says.

On top of all that, there’s another looming unknown: The Spokane Police Guild contract. Earlier this year, the council gave the Woodward administration its biggest rebuke so far by unanimously rejecting the proposed contract, arguing that it was a step backward for police accountability.

Those contract talks are continuing. But if the contract manages to pass, suddenly the city could need to shell out anywhere from $8 million to $10 million for over three years of deferred police salary wages.

That may not even be the most controversial police battle the city will contend with this year. As Beggs — an attorney who’s previously sued Spokane over police brutality — pursues a sweeping police reform agenda, he and Woodward are trying to ask the community what they want by holding face-to-face talks.

They’ll put 15 leaders — representing the mayor’s office, the City Council, cops and activists — in a room with a facilitator and see what they can learn.

Woodward says she’s proud of what her administration has accomplished so far, including opening up a new police precinct.

But her ambitions go a lot further and she wants to pursue them at full speed.

“You only have a short amount of time to be able to accomplish your goals in this office. That’s the way it’s set up,” Woodward says. “I feel like I’ve already lost some time.” n danielw@inlander.com

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OCTOBER 15, 2020 INLANDER 11

NEWS | PANDEMIC

Avista says that while the number of customers behind on their bills hasn’t dramatically changed from last year, the amount owed by those customers is significantly more. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

Keeping the Lights On Washington utilities must keep power and gas on through April even if people can’t pay

BY SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL

W

ith cold weather fast approaching, Washington utility customers won’t have to worry about their electricity or gas getting shut off this winter if they cannot make payments.

This year saw hundreds of thousands of Washingtonians lose their jobs or see reduced hours as the economy was halted to slow the spread of a deadly virus. Even as things have started to reopen in limited ways, many industries remain severely curtailed.

That’s left people like hotel workers, some in construction, seasonal workers and more without the certainty they’ll be able to make next month’s rent, keep the internet on for their child’s schooling, or even pay the electric bill.

Before making the call to extend a moratorium on electric and gas shut-offs, the Washington state Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) held a public hearing Tuesday, Oct. 6, to hear from the public, consumer advocates and utilities.

One mother of three in Raymond near the coast shared that she had been unable to pay her internet bill due to hardships from the pandemic. Her daughter was in the middle of a project for college when the internet was shut off, and she had to start from scratch.

Another mother of four shared that while she has been able to work from home, her husband lost his job, they’ve received multiple water shut-off notices and they’re unqualified for state or federal assistance as she makes just barely more than the poverty cutoff.

12 INLANDER OCTOBER 15, 2020

“A lot of the people who are struggling with their bills are in these very highly impacted industries and unable to find work,” says Ruth Sawyer, an organizer with Sierra Club, which joined other organizations in advocating for an extension to the moratorium on shut-offs. “We know it’s that people don’t have the money, it’s not that they’re just deciding they don’t want to pay today.”

The three-person commission agreed that those who need help the most are struggling right now. In order to avoid hardship for those already in financially dire straits, they extended a moratorium on electric and gas shut-offs for those who can’t pay their bills until April 30, 2021.

Payment plans can also be put in place for those who’ve fallen behind, with up to 18 months for residential customers to pay back utilities and 12 months for small commercial businesses who’ve fallen behind.

Plus, the electric and gas utilities will be required to expand on existing low-income assistance programs that are already required by law and funded by all ratepayers.

With the expansion, the utilities will be required to set aside 1 percent of Washington state retail revenues to pay for COVID-19 bill payment assistance.

The UTC was set to meet again Oct. 15 to finalize the terms of the electricity and gas plans, but questions remain, including how the COVID-19 assistance will be paid for. Will that be pushed onto ratepayers in a future request to recover costs, or should that come from shareholders and executive compensation?

The commission did not address water or telecom-

munications shut-offs, which were only prevented through Oct. 15 by a proclamation from Gov. Jay Inslee, and advocates intended to continue pushing for protections for those utilities as well.

Plus, while the utility companies were supportive of waiving fees and halting shut-offs during the unique case of the pandemic and economic crisis, some advocates see room for permanent structural changes to the system.

“Organizations working with low-income Washingtonians of all races, they’ve been seeing all these issues with utility shut-offs for a long time in their communities,” Sawyer says. “The real hope is this would create permanent reforms on a lot of these things.”

HOW MANY ARE IMPACTED?

Early on in the pandemic, Avista and other utilities voluntarily halted shut-offs and waived late fees for customers facing financial hardships.

By April, Gov. Inslee’s proclamation cemented that policy statewide.

“Our goal all along has been to keep as many customers connected as possible,” says Kevin Christie, Avista’s senior vice president of external affairs and the chief customer officer. “Pre-COVID, during COVID, and after COVID, we help customers facing hardship.”

But while the number of Avista customers in Washington behind on their bills hasn’t dramatically changed from last year, the amount owed by those customers is significantly more.

In Avista’s Washington territory, 29,325 residential customers were in arrears on Aug. 31, owing a collective $7.4 million, compared to 29,753 residential customers owing $3.6 million at the same time last year, according to documents filed with the UTC. While most customers last year were 30 to 60 days past due, a larger percentage of customers this year appear to have fallen 120 days behind. There’s nearly $5 million owed to Avista by 9,239 customers who are 120 days overdue.

Specifically for low-income customers, more than $3.3 million is owed by 9,624 customers, as opposed to

ON INLANDER.COM Find the latest local news at Inlander.com/news, including these stories: u Coeur d’Alene schools see rise in COVID-19 cases

days after opening for full-time in-person learning. u Civil rights groups to Inslee: Stop sending children

to facilities like the one that killed Cornelius Fredericks.

this time last year when 10,352 low-income customers owed a collective $1.4 million.

Avista continues to partner with community organizations like SNAP (Spokane Neighborhood Action Partners) to provide utility assistance to those in need and ensure that those who qualify for programs can get help.

“We are seeing more and more people in need, but in addition, we are seeing people in need with a lot bigger balances, you know, balances that aren’t manageable,” SNAP Director of Community Action Carol Weltz told the UTC on Oct. 6. “We are in favor of the moratorium, but it also has to come with some funding, because at the end of that time, people aren’t going to be able to bail themselves out.”

Avista tries to help customers as early as possible to create reasonable payment plans, and Christie encourages anyone who might be struggling with their Avista bill to contact the utility right away to find out their options.

“We want to help our customers as much as possible so they don’t have one large balance when all is said and done here.

We want to keep that as manageable as possible,” Christie says.

“We’ve found some customers aren’t used to dealing with this kind of hardship. I think we’ve done a good job reaching out and asking them to reach out as soon as possible so we can tell them about their options.”

It’s time to elect a leader who will follow science, protect public health and safety, and rebuild our local economy. Affordable housing, access to healthcare and educational opportunity are at the top of Tom’s agenda.

Paid for by People for McGarry, Tom McGarry, Democrat www.Time4Tom.com

FOOTING THE BILL, WAIVING THE FEES

While the question of who might pay for additional COVID-19 assistance remains to be figured out, utilities and advocates did try to hash that out before the UTC’s Oct. 6 meeting.

Sierra Club and other consumer advocacy groups promoted the idea of cutting into executive compensation and shareholder profits rather than asking the UTC to approve a rate hike on all customers in order to recuperate costs from this year, Sawyer says.

But that was a nonstarter for the utilities, Sawyer explains, and no agreement on that element was met.

“It broke down because the utilities were hoping for essentially a guarantee that they could make up the revenue they’re spending on these assistance programs out of the pockets of ratepayers,” Sawyer says, “and we similarly dug in our heels and insisted that these costs should be shared, that there should be some shared sacrifice here.”

However, the advocates felt there was a glimmer of hope from the negotiations and the response by the commission as far as looking at things like disconnection policies, such as the practice of charging a reconnection fee and requiring a deposit from someone who already couldn’t pay their electric bill.

“I think every utility is different, but there’s a lot of fees that are really inequitable,” Sawyer says. “We’re definitely happy with the extension of the moratorium and they also put a moratorium on those fees. … I think it’s fair to say we’d like to see a lot of these changes become permanent.”

When the electric and gas companies are expected to come to the UTC later this year to ask for cost recovery, Sawyer says it’s likely the advocates will return to make their case that raising ratepayer bills is not the answer.

“We definitely plan to make a stink, so to speak, about executive compensation and making sure that there’s some shared sacrifice,” Sawyer says, “and that the costs of the pandemic are not borne by people who are struggling.” n samanthaw@inlander.com

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OCTOBER 15, 2020 INLANDER 13

Jess Walter taps Spokane history in his latest novel The Cold Millions.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

14 INLANDER OCTOBER 15, 2020

This postcard of a 1911 Spokane street helped inspire Jess Walter’s latest novel.

OTHER SIDE of the STORY the

Dirty cops, civil unrest and income inequality: Author Jess Walter’s new Spokane-set novel The Cold Millions takes place a century ago, but its themes still resonate

R

iverside Avenue is packed.

Not just the sidewalks, where people cluster in front of nearly every storefront and building entrance, but Riverside itself.

In the middle of the street, Spokanites gather in groups large and small, some inside the trolley car tracks and some alongside as the trolleys move east and west on parallel lines. Several of the buildings remain recognizable to a 2020 eye, and signs for casinos and Coca-Cola (“Delicious! Refreshing!”) decorate some of them. Several horse-drawn

BY DAN NAILEN carriages and solo riders on horseback intermingle with the trolleys and locals on foot.

The photo is from 1911 and credited to W.D. McLellan, captioned “A Busy Street in Progressive Spokane.” It’s the kind of vibrant downtown scene that current city leaders can only dream about, even before the pandemic. And it’s a slice of Spokane history that even a born-and-raised guy like author Jess Walter didn’t know much about growing up.

Walter picked up a postcard with McLellan’s photo years ago at Atticus, a

downtown coffee shop, and kept it in the carriage house-turned-writing lair in his West Central backyard. He’d look at it now and again, and in many ways it helped inspire his raucous new novel, The Cold Millions.

“It was that photo, that picture looking down Riverside almost from the old Review tower, I just kept finding myself thinking, ‘What’s going on?’” Walter says. “All those people, where are they going? What’s happening? Why isn’t that the city I live in?” ...continued on next page

OCTOBER 15, 2020 INLANDER 15

LITERATURE “THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY,” CONTINUED...

Walter for years kicked around the idea of a novel set in the early 1900s in Spokane, and he started researching the era and creating characters that show up in The Cold Millions as far back as 2008. But he set that work aside to do things like finish his 2012 New York Times best-seller Beautiful Ruins or work on screenplays or short stories.

He started work on another novel but went back to what became The Cold Millions in 2015.

“I was just so compelled by it,” Walter says. “That picture just kept saying, ‘Write about me.’”

I

of 1910 is everywhere.” He lives in a 1907 house; his grandfather arrived in the area by hopping a train, the preferred mode of transportation for The Cold Millions’ centerpiece brothers; and, Walter says, he comes from a “labor, Democrat family.”

“Most places have such a boring official history,” Walter says. “‘This guy settled here, and he started a lumber mill.’ And that is the true history. What I’ve written — well, all fiction is speculative fiction in some ways — there are real things that happened. The book is framed by the deaths of two police officers that really happened. And, of course the labor riots and the Wobblies. But the rest of it is just speculation and fanciful creativity.”

“I’ve never written a Western, but this felt as close to a Western as I could get. I could have gunplay and these big, violent characters.”

f you visit the city of Spokane’s website right now, you’ll find a “history” section that’s all of four paragraphs. Ten sentences. You’ll learn that the region’s Native Spokane tribe inspired the city’s name. You’ll read about the massive 1889 fire, about when the old (and new!) city hall buildings were constructed, about the ’74 World’s Fair and the creation of Riverfront Park. Oh, and you’ll learn Spokane is the second-biggest city in Washington.

That’s it. That’s the history.

Walter grew up in Spokane Valley and didn’t learn much more than that in school. It was only later, working as a reporter at the Spokesman-Review, when occasional trips into the paper’s archives to read century-old stories revealed a more fascinating history of his hometown.

The Cold Millions, available everywhere Oct. 27, takes place mostly over the course of a just few weeks in the early 1900s when the scrappy itinerant workers of a nascent labor movement and the region’s wealthy corporate overlords (and their supporting police department) clashed — on the streets, in the city’s newspapers, even in Walter’s characters’ bedrooms. In 1909 the Spokane City Council banned speeches on downtown streets in an effort to limit labor strikes, and the Industrial Workers of the World (aka, the “Wobblies”) reacted by calling for workers to descend on Spokane, get on soapboxes and fill the city’s jails in a massive example of civil protest. Hundreds of Wobblies heeded the call, and historians deem that era one of the first free speech fights in the country.

The Cold Millions is a blend of fact and fiction, and a ripping read full of dirty cops and hitmen, sexy stage actresses and shady club owners, heroic idealists and disturbing doublecrossers — all of them trying to make a go of it in Spokane when it was a boomtown in transition.

It’s always gripping and often hilarious and explores to varying degrees themes and issues — the chasm between rich and poor, sexism, racism — that should resonate with modern readers.

“After Beautiful Ruins, I kind of had this desire to write a big adventure story,” Walter says. “And I’ve never written a Western, but this felt almost as close to a Western as I could get. I could have gunplay, and these big, violent characters. And politically, I could write about economic inequity now without being dogmatic. I could do it in sort of a metaphoric way.”

Walter’s been entranced with that era for a long time, noting that “when you live in Spokane, it’s like the ghost

16 INLANDER OCTOBER 15, 2020

A

s The Cold Millions unspools, Montana brothers Gig and Rye Dolan show up in Spokane looking for work, only to be swept up in a series of labor protests, and a police investigation into an officer murdered while investigating burglaries in the posh Cannon Hill neighborhood. While Gig is stuck in jail as one of the protests’ alleged instigators, Rye finds himself released and suddenly caught up trailing famed 19-year-old activist and pioneering feminist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, barnstorming the region from Missoula to Seattle to raise money for the labor cause. All the while Rye is trying to figure out how to get Gig out of jail, a pursuit that leads him to interact with mining magnates, hired thugs and an exotic dancer, Ursula the Great, best known for using a live cougar in her act.

Walter is an entrancing tour guide of yesteryear Spokane throughout The Cold Millions, putting the reader inside Spokane beer halls and jail cells, North Idaho

mining camps, glitzy theaters and the tiny abodes of the working women in the city’s red light district. (“If you look on the floor at Zola [a popular downtown bar], you can still see where the little rooms were,” Walter says.)

“Doing all this research, I’d map all the places and I’d just ride my bike to all the places that appear in the novel,” Walter says. “I get to the part where John Sullivan, the acting police chief, gets killed, and it’s 1318 W. Sinto. So I hop on my bike and ride by, and I swear to God, that f---ing house has not changed. There might still be a bullet hole. I just lost my breath. This history, you just see it.”

You can also hear it in Walter’s prose, whether in his descriptions of the scenes or the words of his characters.

When he started playing with Gig and Rye years ago, the voices of those two brothers, reflective of their lot in life and their Western roots, thrilled Walter enough to want to tell their story.

“The language of that period, bindlestiffs and just the language of hobos, and of that whole economic system just struck me as so rich,” Walter says. “It’s like these notes on the piano. You start hearing this melody of these workers and the brothels, the tavern girls. It’s almost like a dream state.”

T

he Cold Millions’ fusing of fact and fiction works remarkably well, to the point where it’s easy to find yourself thinking you’re reading the most thrilling history book imaginable. Its cast of characters — from drunk hitmen to nouveau riche assholes, sympathetic strippers to earnest labor activists — populate an electrifying action-adventure tale. But they also help illustrate some Spokane history Walter is proud of; namely, the labor activists who literally hopped on soapboxes throughout downtown to give speeches supporting workers’ rights, even in the face of violent anti-labor thugs and arrest by Spokane cops.

Activist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and murdered cop John Sullivan are real people and characters in Walter’s latest fiction.

“To me it meant something that the birth of nonviolent protest happened in Spokane,” Walter says.

“This was the first successful use of these sorts of tools. I took a very nonviolent protest and wrote a novel full of violence. Which I think happens behind the scenes.

“It wasn’t anything I grew up learning about, but I did long for a time when the promise of labor was… you know, the decline of unions in the last 40 years is one of those untold stories.

The loss of the working class to the Democratic Party I think has been a huge blunder. So those kinds of things plant themselves, and I found myself looking for a time when collective thinking wasn’t scoffed at. You go back to these origin stories, and this just felt like the origin story of labor.”

In some ways, the world of The Cold Millions is the origin story of Jess Walter as we now know the 55-yearold author. He wouldn’t be here to tell this story if his grandfather, also named Jess Walter, hadn’t hopped a train and arrived in Spokane as an itinerant worker in the 1930s.

“He’d tell me these stories, and it sounded so adventurous to me,” Walter says.

“That sense of adventure and sense of economic unknown.

You venture into a town and you hope for the best, right?”

Jess Walter the grandfather made it work in Spokane nearly a century ago, and Jess Walter the author mined his hometown for what turned out to be an incredible glimpse of its history through The Cold Millions. While Spokane will undoubtedly pop up in Walter’s work again, it will never be quite like this.

“I think a novelist kind of owes it to him or herself to write about the most interesting period of her place or his place,” Walter says, “and this just felt like when Spokane was so vibrant, and just humming with so much danger.” n The Cold Millions hits bookstores Oct. 27. Visit jesswalter.com for a list of upcoming streaming book launch discussions and readings.

OCTOBER 15, 2020 INLANDER 17

LITERATURE

BACK in TIME

As his new novel The Cold Millions hits the public, Jess Walter reflects on his old books

BY DAN NAILEN

S

pokane author Jess Walter’s first novel published since his 2012 New York Times bestseller Beautiful Ruins arrives in stores Oct. 27 in the form of The Cold Millions. When we chatted with Walter about his new Spokane-set, action-packed historical novel, we had him look back on each of his books that came before. Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW 1995

Walter’s nonfiction book about the Ruby Ridge standoff between Randy Weaver’s family and the federal government.

I really challenged myself to write with the neutrality of a reporter. I was at the [Spokesman-Review] when Ruby Ridge happened. Covered it. Researched how the Weavers arrived at that, researched how the government messed it up, covered the trial and then tried to sell a book for about a year and a half, then took a sabbatical to work on the book, then finally sold it. That would have been the spring of ’95 and it came out in the summer of ’95. So I sold it, wrote it, and it came out in just this incredibly fast amount of time. I’m weirdly proud of it, although it feels like a different person. A really young, idealistic journalist. I didn’t sleep. I used to have a trampoline in the backyard, and I would go to Java Junkies, which was one of the first espresso places, and get what they called a Buzz Bomb. At midnight, to keep working, I would get a Buzz Bomb and do flips just to keep myself working because I knew my deadline was soon. And I didn’t know then that you could miss a book deadline.

For my book tour, I started on Nightline, Good Morning America. Flew to New York, and I’d never been east of Wyoming. It was so surreal.

IN CONTEMPT 1996

Walter co-wrote prosecutor Christopher Darden’s memoir of the O.J. Simpson trial.

My publisher called and said, “I signed Christopher Darden, the prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson case. Would you want to maybe help write his book if he’s interested?” So I had to kind of audition for it. That was so surreal, too. I moved onto Chris’s couch for a time, at the very end of the wildness of the O.J. case … There were so many Hollywood people surrounding that case that the phone would ring and it would be Ed Begley Jr. One day Carrie Fisher stopped by the house. I’m like, “What world am I in? This guy’s a lawyer, right?” It was so surreal, but it did help me form my sense of the outlandish, and the larger than life, and the too much to believe until it’s not.

18 INLANDER OCTOBER 15, 2020

OVER TUMBLED GRAVES 2001

Spokane Police detective Caroline Mabry hunts for a serial killer.

I thought, “I’ll teach myself to write a novel by writing a crime novel ... I don’t have an MFA, I really don’t know what I’m doing, so it seemed like a crime novel was the way to kind of have enough scaffolding that the building would go up straight. The times when I would write straight literary fiction, or more experimental, or fiction that wasn’t constrained by the rules of crime novels, it felt like it would get away from me. So it was a way to kind of teach myself how to write a novel.

LAND OF THE BLIND 2003

Mabrey returns to solve another crime.

The Land of the Blind is probably the runt of the litter.

It sold the fewest. I think it’s when I allowed myself to let my skewed sense of humor — of dark humor — into a book. I’ll still meet people who will say, “The Land of the Blind is my favorite!” It was a little bit of a tweener.

I didn’t want to totally disappoint my editors, and so I framed a coming-of-age novel as sort of a crime novel, trying to split the difference a little bit.

CITIZEN VINCE 2005

A criminal living in Spokane in the witness protection program sees his past catch up with him.

Citizen Vince feels like when I really found my footing — probably. I was drawing on my reporting, because I’d covered people in the witness protection program. So much of being a novelist is getting the knobs right on that stereo, the treble and bass in balance, and I just feel like that’s when I got the knobs right. It’s my wife’s favorite of my novels.

THE ZERO 2006

The post-9/11 thriller was nominated for a National Book Award.

The Zero almost killed me. Really hard book to write.

I think in some ways it’s my best novel because of the ambiguity and its difficulty. Readers want a book that works towards solution, to solve the crime or solve the problem with a narrative. With that one I sort of gave in to working toward dissolution. And I think sometimes it’s great, and other times it still scares me to see it on the shelf. It was a National Book Award finalist, and to have someone say this is one of the five best literary works of the year, that landed me in a place I’d never dreamed I’d be.

THE FINANCIAL LIVES OF THE POETS 2009

A darkly comic tale of a man losing everything good in his life in the midst of the economic crisis.

I was stuck on Beautiful Ruins, I’d written myself into just this hole. Citizen Vince was like finding my footing as a writer. Then The Zero and Beautiful Ruins were me trying to expand and work beyond my abilities almost. And I just wanted to write something fun and simple, and I have this voice come to me. I was in 7-Eleven buying a gallon of milk, and I thought, “I just want to take that voice and write straight through.” So it was almost like a palate cleanser toward finishing Beautiful Ruins. I thought, “I can just tell this first-person story over the course of five days. This isn’t spanning 50 years, 19 characters and famous people. This is just this guy’s story.” So it was kind of getting back to a simpler kind of storytelling, but also being funny. I thought, “I want to be as funny as I can,” while still maybe having the darkness.

Play where the big winners play.

REGULAR

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A gloriously sprawling novel covering several decades and countries, love, loss and Richard Burton.

I feel like there’s some culmination of the craft of writing with kind of the psychology of it. Like, you have to get over a lot to finish a novel. You’re constantly second-guessing and deluding yourself. I never would have thought during the period that I wrote that, that “this is working.” I just kept thinking it was failing. The 15 years [writing it] were 14 years of misery, because I loved writing it. It was really fun to write. But I couldn’t figure it out. I couldn’t get all the pieces to come together. It’s kind of an elaborate Swiss watch. When I put that last little piece in and it started telling time, I was like, “Damn! That was fun” … Just to have that many readers that you connect with, it just doesn’t happen to writers very often. Embarrassed by good fortune.

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WE LIVE IN WATER: STORIES 2013

Walter’s first collection of short stories.

Even when I was having success as a novelist, writing a short story will return you immediately to humility. They’re really hard ... I was almost more excited by We Live in Water than Beautiful Ruins because I knew I had been trying to write short stories since 1987. I’ve wanted to be a short story writer longer than almost anything ... It’s where I think a lot of my insecurities were planted. I would get that form rejection [letter] and think, “Maybe they’re right.” I think every writer says “Maybe they’re right” to themselves 19-20,000 times ... I sent out stories for seven years without publishing. Seven years is a long time. I know most readers don’t care about short stories, but I feel a real personal sense of connection to them. That’s why I keep writing them all the time and celebrating. If there’s a journal I haven’t published in, I’ll actually try to send them one. Little journals, college journals. I still get that thrill — the opposite of rejection. n

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OCTOBER 15, 2020 INLANDER 19

LITERATURE A view of downtown Spokane in 1915.

THE COLD MILLIONS

This chapter of The Cold Millions introduces Del Dalveaux, some out-of-town muscle brought to Spokane by a local mining magnate to deal with some professional and personal headaches.

Told from the perspective of Dalveaux, it’s clear he’s not a fan of the Lilac City.

S

pokane gave me the morbs. Right blood blister of a town. Six-month millionaires and skunk-hobos, and none in between, Spokane a gilded carriage passing by peasants bathing in the very river they shat in.

Last place I wanted to go, but the job was the job, so I packed three shirts and lingered a minute over which barking iron to take (in the end I went small, loud, and kicky, the .32 Savage automatic). I caught first-class Denver to Billings, my first day sober in a month spent crossing Montana, then two hours over the Idaho panhandle toward the Washington border, and that’s when the old morbid voice rattled up: Careful, Del— At Hope, I slipped the porter a buck for a whiskey, then another when the train slowed the last five miles, forest, foothills, farms, and finally, Spokane.

I couldn’t believe how the syphilitic town had metastasized. Smoke seeped from twenty thousand chimneys, pillars to an endless gray ceiling. The city was twice the size of the last time I’d hated being there. A box of

20 INLANDER OCTOBER 15, 2020

misery spilled over the whole river valley.

I was half rats by the time we settled in the station.

The voice again: Go home, Del. You don’t need this. But my doctor wasn’t likely to take reputation as payment.

You can do this, I said back. Ten years a Pinkerton, ten more with Allied, and twenty a freelance, I had survived worse.

And money was good. The kind of money I hadn’t seen since the mining wars, this Brand offering me prime pay (Dear Detective Dalveaux, My associates and I would like to inquire . . . ) and a bit of my old station in the letter, but also I suspected the job lived on the outskirts of what I was willing to do—and I’d done plenty: undercover with the Molly Maguires in my youth and the unionists in middle age. I had broke, beat, and buried men.

Spokane had a fancy new train station since I’d been through, built on an island just this side of the falls, three stories of brick and optimism. On the platform, I made the mistake of looking up, and a ripe ass told me I

was gazing upon the biggest clock west of Chicago, 155 feet tall with four nine-foot faces. The ripe ass also said Spokane had the biggest beer hall and the biggest theater stage in the world, and I fancied shooting him in the teeth if he didn’t shut up. I can suffer any fool, but a booster turns my guts.

“You know what else you should see while you’re here?” he said.

“Is it only you,” I said, “or is every man in this town an insufferable c---?”

Before he could answer, a thick lug in a driver’s cap stepped forward from a line of porters. Stared at my nose.

A lot of things a man can hide, but not that grog-blossom map of life. “Mr. Dalveaux? Please follow me, sir.”

I stepped after the driver, but I noticed his socks were silk. His arm swung cuff links. Good Christ, this tiresome business. A fancy monger pretending to be his own driver, cap and all, reaching for the bags like a servant. ...continued on page 22

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LITERATURE “THE COLD MILLIONS,” CONTINUED...

How to play it? Get rumbumptious or let him have his fun? I went down the middle, didn’t want him to play me, but didn’t want him canked yet, either: “Thank you, Mr. Brand,” I said, and he looked surprised over his shoulder. I liked the defeat on his face—his racket was queered and he was stuck carrying my bags. How’s that for a red nose, muffinguts? He muttered some rot about safety and anonymity, but I could tell he’d just wanted to reveal himself like a posh magician—Look, it is I, Lemuel Brand!

We were followed by his security lug, who climbed in a tail car. Brand and I settled in a big touring auto—him driving us into that hopeful downtown, past a curling streetcar packed with people, hutching wagons and sputtering Tin Lizzies, much more traffic than last time, on suspiciously wide streets up a hill to a big gaudy house overlooking his rank kingdom.

He laid out a whole speech in the car: “city on the verge of—dangers of socialism—East Coast agitators—immigrant filth—concerned mine owners and business leaders—real Americans—jail full of vermin—mayor’s hands tied—in support of police—moral responsibility— commercial interests—future in the balance—last stand of decency—” “And is that why you brought me here, Mr. Brand?

My decency?”

He looked over. Did not so much as smile.

We parked and got out of the touring. The security brute climbed out of the follow car and gave me the old agency-man once-over. I opened my coat to show my gun so the lug wouldn’t feel the need to pull it from me.

“Dalveaux,” said I. “Willard,” said he.

Three other men worked the edges. This Brand was spooked. Or just had money to burn. He offered to show me the grounds, but I declined, much to his disappointment. I was already feeling one of my harder thirsts.

His lecture had reached the part about him representing “a consortium of industrialists, mining and timber men looking to fight back against the anarchists and unionists.”

“Consortium,” I repeated. Nothing better than a consortium. Ten rich hens to pluck instead of one.

He explained that the Spokane police chief had been properly tough with the Wobblies in the first round, and if they stayed tough until spring, the tramps would give up and go back to work, and trouble would take care of itself. But there were “pockets of weakness in the city’s resolve,” and a new union organizer had arrived, a girl.

“The consortium hopes to augment the actions of the police while keeping this young woman organizer from getting a foothold.”

books. And made to look . . .” He searched for the word.

“Natural. You came highly recommended for that.”

Then he said a name. Rich Spokane monger.

Nasty job I had done for him last time I was here.

During the low period. The kind of thing the Pinkertons and better agencies wouldn’t touch. A woman-in-the-way kind of thing.

Christ this town.

We went up the steps, and as if to wave off my conscience, Brand swept his arm at the entryway.

“Welcome to Alhambra, Mr. Dalveaux!”

“Like the Spanish castle.”

He looked stunned, and if he hadn’t hired me already, he’d have done so on the spot. “Well. I must say—you live up to your reputation.”

These mining guys. Knew so little and wanted to believe so much. How hard was it to find the name of his bloody house?

I followed him through a fancy landing, beneath dual staircases, to a two-story library. Books that hadn’t been cracked since they were shelved. Give money to a monkey and he’ll fill his cage with bananas.

Give the same money to a dim American and he’ll build a show library every time.

Brand had a bottle brought in. Brandy. I stared at it while he mentioned again the Spokane mining prince I’d done the job for a few years back—son of a prominent family in a rub with a hotel girl—a dove run by some cop in town—told the boy’s father that the girl was pregnant—father deciding it was cheaper to pay old Del once than this rat cop over and over—Can you make it seem . . . accidental— On and on, anon, anon, begat, begun, begone. The brandy stared back.

“And so, in talking with my colleagues, you seemed a good candidate for the kind of thing we need.”

“Which is?”

“Which is . . . the kind of thing we need.”

His tone surlied me—or the bottle did, just sitting there, doing none of us any good. And the sour taste of that other job: hiring the girl, getting her drunk in her crib behind the tavern, pouring booze and lye down her throat until she drowned. Easing out of the room. Took a peek-feel as she died and she wasn’t even pregnant—likely just a play this dirty cop made against the wealthy kid.

But the girl was gone now, while the rat cop, shit kid, and old Del, we all woke up next morning and breathed air. In a better world, I’d have done them, too, the cop, the kid, the dad, but that wasn’t the job. The job was the job and the girl had to go. And Del—a little more of him in the process.

Finally, Brand handed me a glass of brandy.

“They’re planning another major action, November twenty-ninth,” he said.

“They’re going around giving speeches, raising money, recruiting bodies to fill the jail. They want to hire Darrow.”

“Sure they do,” I said. After he got Big Bill Haywood acquitted of a murder conspiracy in Boise in ’07, every jailed radical prayed at night to Clarence Darrow.

“We would like their efforts . . . hindered.”

Hindered? The only thing I hated more than a booster was a euphemism. Augment? Hinder? I ought to augment his chin with my right fist and hinder his dick with my left. I drained my glass.

“I was thinking,” Brand said, “what if, at some point of their travels, their party was relieved of whatever funds they’d raised?”

“You want them robbed,” I said. Euphemisms.

“Is it considered robbery if the money is intended for

“His tone surlied me—or the bottle did, just sitting there, doing none of us any good.”

“So it’s augmenting you want,” I said. “Why me?

Plenty of augmenters here. Indeed, there were three national detective agencies with shops in Spokane—Thiel’s thugs and Pinkerton’s too-smart-for-their-own-goods and Allied’s bargain boys. Any of them could augment, plus at least four regional head-knock shops. Why go all the way to Denver and old Del—this part I did not say—ten years far side of prime?

“First, this can’t be local,” Brand said. “And it can’t be one of my men. No tracing it back. It needs to be off the

22 INLANDER OCTOBER 15, 2020

an illegal purpose?”

“Yes,” I said. “How much money?”

“The money isn’t important.”

“The money’s always important.”

“The money is important only in that it conflicts with our larger purposes. You can keep the money. What I’m wondering is if the presence of the money provides an opportunity to . . . make one thing look like another?”

I finished my brandy through gritted teeth, thinking: You don’t hire a man forty goddamn years in this thing and tell him how to make one thing look like another thing. Just like you don’t go into a restaurant and hand the chef a recipe for a bouillabaisse. You order bouillabaisse and you let the goddamn chef do his goddamn job. You don’t hire Del for a dirt bath and say make it look like a manicure.

“You have names?”

“I have dossiers.”

Good Christ. Dossiers. Save me from these mining men—little girls playing dress-up in their mother’s wardrobe.

He handed me a file. Dalveaux typed on the outside.

Six pages. Four names: two tramps, brothers, Gregory and Ryan Dolan, twenty-three and almost seventeen. Montanans. Arrested in the labor trouble. The younger released.

The older, Gregory, still in jail. He’d done some speaking for the IWW and was known to “consort” with Margaret Anne Burns, aka Ursula the Great, thirty-two although she claimed twenty-four, actress in a wild cougar act. It was the joke of a place like Spokane, how many whores listed themselves as “actress.” Still, if it was real, I wouldn’t mind seeing this cougar thing. It occurred to me that Brand might have a personal angle for this job, too—a stake in the cadge. ...continued on page 24

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There was a third bum, but the information was thin, nothing but a name, Early Reston. He’d taken a few punches at a Spokane cop. With this one I was to use caution because he was dangerous. I nearly laughed at the idea of a dangerous bum. So he’d decked a cop? There were raccoons I’d take in a fight with a Spokane cop.

That left the labor woman. The only one I knew. At least I knew of her. Every detective in the west knew Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. Saucebox spent the last two years riling up camps from Seattle to Minneapolis. Labor cunny roused more rabble than jaws twice her age. I’d had my boy Paul in St. Paul tail her back when she was working the Minnesota mining region, and he all but fell in love with her. After that I’d heard some miner married her and knapped her up. Good for all involved. Best way to turn a nineteen-year-old problem like that was put her in a kitchen with a babe on her tit.

But now she was back on the road?

“What do you think?”

I looked up. Brand was smiling. “The bums won’t be a problem.”

“The older brother is still in jail.”

“It will be easier when he gets out.

Fewer people involved.”

“I see. And what about this Early Reston? He beat up a cop pretty bad. When it comes to it, I would advise taking him down first.”

When it comes to the bouillabaisse, I’d stew the lobster with tomatoes first. “Like I said, the bums won’t be a problem.” I held up the page and pointed to Gurley Flynn’s name, not wanting to say it aloud. “This one’s a problem.”

He nodded. “The job you did for my friend—” “I don’t mean because she’s a woman. I mean the attention. It would be four times the price.” I held up four fingers. “Plus expenses.”

His eyes widened. “I see.” It was more than he’d planned, and I worried I’d started

24 INLANDER OCTOBER 15, 2020

too high. “Well.” He took a swallow of his drink. “Maybe it won’t come to that. For now I just want them located, followed, and—” “Hindered,” I said.

“Hindered,” he said, “although, should the opportunity present itself—” I cleared my throat. Should the opportunity—I was the opportunity, opportunity and chance and fate, that’s why you called Del. Dirt bath. Eternity box. That’s the opportunity I provided.

“There is one other thing you should know,” Brand said. “Last week I made an entreaty to the younger brother.”

“You did what—” “An entreaty? An offer—” “I know what an entreaty is.”

Brand shifted in his chair. “Last week I brought Ryan Dolan here and I floated the idea of hiring him, having him on retainer.

For information.”

“Information?”

“Specifically, I wanted to know if Early Reston had rejoined their party.”

I stared.

“I . . . I had Ursula bring Ryan to me.

You see, I was seeking information—” I held up the file. “You had one of these people . . . brought here?”

He cleared his throat at the depth of his mistake. “Ursula wanted me to get the older brother released, and . . . it seemed like an opportunity to—” “What if he told someone? What if Ursula told someone?”

I could see this hadn’t occurred to him.

Christ, this euphemistic stupid scaramouch.

I closed the dossiers. They weren’t half bad.

That’s what made them so bad. I looked up at Willard, standing with his hands crossed in the corner. “A minute with your boss?”

He looked at Brand, who nodded. The lug left the room.

I closed the file and ran my finger over the label. Dalveaux.

Brand saw me looking at his handi-

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work. “I imagine you’ll be hiring other men for this operation? Perhaps I could be your—” “Shut your bone box.”

His breath went short.

I walked to the fireplace and pitched the dossiers into the fire. “No more paper. No more dossiers. No more fake drivers and no more trying to hire the men you want me to plant. Right?”

He nodded weakly.

“I will hinder. Follow the girl and plan the robbery. Meantime, you go back to your consortium, and if it’s dirt baths you want: It’s a thousand per bum and three for the girl. Nonnegotiable. From now on, you and I speak only by telephone. Twice a week. I ring you on Monday and Friday. I tell the girl on the line my name is Grant.

“If it’s just the robbery, you don’t take the call. If it’s a dirt bath you want, you come on the line and propose lunch.

If it’s the labor cunny, you say, ‘Can we have lunch Monday, Mr. Grant?’ If it’s the dangerous tramp Reston, you say, ‘Lunch Tuesday?’ The entreaty brother, ‘Lunch Wednesday?’ If it’s the whole party, you ask for dinner—” “Dinner,” he said breathlessly, his trousers no doubt tightening.

“Say you want just the girl and the dangerous tramp, you say—” “‘Mr. Grant, can we have lunch Monday or Tuesday?’”

“Right. And the younger brother and Reston?” “‘Mr. Grant, can we have lunch Tuesday or Wednesday?’”

“And if you want all of them done, you say?” “‘Mr. Grant, can we schedule a dinner?’”

“Good.” It was over the top, pointless secret agent business, but he ate it up.

That’s what he was hiring—a story. Any mining goon could plant three tramps and a knapped-up labor girl. This rust-guts wanted a play. So, Del played, and hoped this lunch-on-Tuesday gully-fluff would keep him occupied and out of my way.

“Any questions?”

“What if I actually want to have lunch?”

I cleared my throat. “We will not be having lunch. Anything else I should know?”

He hesitated a moment, and the old voice said, Oh, get out, Del, but I hadn’t made this kind of money in a decade, and then he said, “No, that’s it.”

I didn’t think he’d ever ordered this before. He was overwhelmed, a scared schoolgirl with Del’s hand up his skirt.

I reached over and took the bottle of brandy. “Now have your man drive me downtown. I need to get some sleep. And have a girl sent up. Something young.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Right, then.” I offered my hand down to him. “Charmed.”

The man looked up, took my hand, and I shook it. And I squeezed the blood right out of that fat claw. n

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Now What?

Summer had to end sometime, and with

Winter is Coming...................... 6 Tricks of the Trade................... 10 West Plains Mains ..................14 The Whole Nine...................... 18 Deer Park and Elk................... 18 Q&A with Ben Meharg........... 22 Wake Up & Eat....................... 26 Any ‘Wich Way...................... 30 Where’s the Beef?................... 34 Wrap City............................... 38 Pizza Time.............................. 42

it, we knew that the warm glow of patio season would begin to fade and a new reality would confront Spokane County’s hospitality industry.

What now?

Restaurants have been struggling throughout the pandemic, but through ingenuity and support from devoted customers, they’re making the best of it. Some relief is on the way, thankfully. On Oct. 6, Gov. Jay Inslee announced updates to the state’s restarting phases, giving the go-ahead to serve alcohol until 11 pm instead of 10 pm, and allowing indoor dining among people from different households.

Meanwhile, nearly 100 local restaurants (and counting) have banded together to draft you, the dining public, into their cause. Members of the Spokane Hospitality Coalition have all pledged to follow an extensive list of safety standards to keep everyone safe so that commerce can flow as freely as possible in the Spokane area.

“Our goal is to provide local restaurants with the support they need to survive — putting butts in seats… and support the community that supports us,” says coalition co-director London Harris of London’s Ultimate Catering.

The group’s mission fits nicely with the goals of Back to Business, a local marketing effort developed by the Inlander and a variety of community institutions, including STCU and Washington Trust Bank (see page 5 for more details).

Together these partners recognize the importance of Spokane County’s hospitality industry — not just to the culture and vibrancy of our community, but also to the economic well-being of the entire region.

This Back to Business Guide, the third in a series, is part of that team effort. Inside you’ll learn more about how restaurants are dealing with the coming winter, how you can master the tricks of takeout and where you can safely go for breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner.

Read on! ◆

ORDER UP!

Grab the next Back to Business Guide on Oct. 29 when Volume 4, focused on shopping and retail in Spokane County, will be inserted in the Inlander.

Find resources and details about this ongoing project at btb.inlander.com.

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How to... ...Support Local ...Use This Guide: Inside you’ll find lots of inviting stories about how Spokane County Restaurants: The hospitality industry businesses are figuring out ways to thrive in these difis critical to the Inland Northwest, and we all need to do our part to help them succeed right now. Fortunately, this is a yummy responsibility. Go out to eat, order delivery, fill a growler, bring takeout home for the family, buy gift cards from your favorite restaurants, or get a cocktail to go and enjoy an expertly mixed drink on your own deck. Also, help spread the word about what restaurants, breweries, wineries and distilleries are doing well. Finally, tell your friends and family to pick up this guide!

ficult times. But importantly, you’ll also see well over 100 ads promoting area businesses; each one includes all you need to know about your favorite restaurants.

Spend a moment with each of these, and remember that each individual business represents something so much bigger: These are our friends and neighbors, they are major employers who pump out great food and drinks but also pump money back into our local communities as a whole.

FOLLOW THE THREE W’s — WEAR A MASK, WASH YOUR HANDS, WATCH YOUR DISTANCE. 4

VOLUME 3

...Keep Up on Latest Developments: This Back to Busi-

ness is the third in a series that will be published in the coming weeks and months. In the meantime, find Back to Business pages in the Inlander every week through the end of the year; these pages feature our Fresh Sheet with the latest news and deals being offered by area businesses. Find more at btb.inlander.com.

...Stay Safe as a Consumer or Business Owner: For starters, follow public health

guidelines about social distancing and mask-wearing.

Here’s an easy way to remember what to do: Spread Kindness Not COVID-19. (Find out more about that countywide awareness effort at KindnessNotCovid. org.) As a business owner, there are a lot of resources available to help you, starting with Back to Business and all of its partners. Additionally, visit InlandBizStrong.org for other resources. ◆ SPONSORED CONTENT

WELCOME

About Back to Business This guide is part of a local marketing effort in support of

A Vital Mission Strictly speaking, halibut cakes, carne asada, and salted caramel cupcakes are not necessities of life.

Yet, one of the lessons from COVID-19 is that local businesses like Hay J’s Bistro, Mexico Lindo Taqueria, and Sweet Frostings are essential. They’re where we connect, console, and celebrate. They’re a paycheck for staff, a lifelong investment for owners.

To the community, they’re vital. Not casting any shade on the chains, but these home-grown restaurants are what makes this place Spokane. Boise doesn’t have Chkn-N-Mo. Portland doesn’t have the Grain Shed. You can’t get a Davenport Signature Brunch in Seattle, or a Neato Burrito in Missoula.

Of course, those who provide our books, hammers and art are every bit as important as those who help us break bread. They’ll be featured in upcoming “Back to Business” publications.

It’s no secret that many businesses are hurting. At STCU, we processed more than 1,000 paycheck protection loans when the Small Business Administration offered them at the start of the pandemic. And we made it possible for other, smaller credit unions to provide the same assistance for their business members, as well.

Now, we’re looking beyond recovery. It’s our hope that over the coming months, “Back to Business” inspires you to view our local enterprises as community assets, worthy of your support now, and for the long haul.

That means more than placing an order and tipping generously. It means showing appreciation and a bit of grace to those who work on the frontlines, and to the owners who put their livelihoods on the line every day.

After all, they’re our neighbors.

the hospitality sector developed by leading local institutions and community-minded businesses to help promote our region’s recovery. The project was unanimously approved for support by Spokane’s County Commissioners through the CARES Act with the express goal of supporting affected businesses in the hospitality sector. It should be noted that the Inlander’s editorial coverage remains separate and independent from this marketing effort.

Volume THREE is focused on restaurants and local purveyors of beer, wine, cider and spirits. Through the end of the year, watch the Inlander for more special Back To Business guides focused on businesses in our community, along with special features, sharing even more recovery stories.

Businesses are working hard to serve customers and stay safe. Finding ways for everyone to connect with area businesses is critical in keeping our community moving forward during this challenging time.

Ezra Eckhardt President/CEO

Find deals, specials and business updates from area businesses at btb.inlander.com

... and in the weekly Back to Business pages in the Inlander Support provided from Spokane County through the CARES act

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NEWS

SAYS CHAPS OWNER CELESTE SHAW: "I THINK I'VE SEEN BOTH SIDES OF IT FROM THE HEALTH CARE PERSPECTIVE AND AS A BUSINESS OWNER, AND I STILL COME TO THE SAME CONCLUSION AT THE END OF EVERY DAY: SAFETY FIRST."

Winter Is Coming With cold weather fast approaching, Spokane County restaurants brace for indoor season For many restaurants, scrambling to expand patio space or create it from scratch seemed like the way to survive the hardships of 2020 and a global pandemic. That was way back this spring and early summer, when the weather was just warming up outside and it seemed like things would surely be better by the time fall and winter came along.

But as the weather gets close to turning cold again, Spokane County restaurants remain limited to 50 percent capacity, and that outdoor dining that has been key to the bottom line this summer will go away for many places.

While there could be a resurgence in takeout and family-style meals for some places, the fast casual restaurants that were best set up for that style when the pandemic began are also the least likely to struggle with the transition back to cold weather this fall.

Instead, the Washington Hospitality Association expects the restaurants that will struggle the most are those with full service and those independently owned places without a larger chain to rely on, explains association CEO and President Anthony Anton.

“The scary news is that winter is coming,” Anton says. “Restaurants are not profitable at 50 percent capacity with single household rules, and we’re going to lose all outdoor dining here soon. That has a lot of people panicked and worried.”

On top of that, federal loans that were part of the Paycheck Protection Program have run out for many, and there’s still little clarity for many on how to apply for forgiveness.

That’s left a lot of business owners around the state worried about what comes next, Anton says.

On Oct. 6, Gov. Jay Inslee announced updates to the state’s restarting phases that address some of the concerns. Effective immediately, restaurants were given the go-ahead to serve alcohol until 11 pm instead of 10 pm. Indoor dining may now allow people from different households, and those tables can hold up to 6 people for counties in Phase 2 (like Spokane County) and up to 8 people for those in Phase 3.

Other changes the association would like to see include allowing up to 75 percent capacity in Phase 3, and with that, enabling creative solutions with the 6-foot spacing rule. One option might be reopening

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limited bar top seating that could be spread apart.

Otherwise, Anton says, some small restaurants won’t be able to expand above the 50 percent capacity even if the other rules seem to suggest they could.

Short of major changes, the association predicts that a third of Washington’s restaurants could close this year.

“Pre-COVID, if you spent $100 in a restaurant, a restaurant made $4. I know people think that those who own a business must have jets and mansions and stuff, but the reality is most of our restaurant owners are blue-collar people who are taking a run at a dream,” Anton says. “This is a tough business, that’s why the failure rate in good times is so high.”

But in bad times, in pandemic times, not being able to serve more people will push many to the breaking point, he warns.

For CHAPS, winter has always meant closing down the outdoor patio space that’s so popular in summertime and moving people indoors, says owner Celeste Shaw.

But the restrictions on table sizes have been difficult to navigate, she says, as it seems illogical to make a family with four adults and three children, for example, split across two tables. She’d like to see some more flexibility for larger tables that include the same family, at least.

“I think you should be able to have groups of 10 so families can stay together, or groups that show up together can sit together,” Shaw says. “I understand the initial restrictions, but the key is we have to, at some level, start progressing or people will [break] those rules themselves and then there’s no control.”

However, as a nurse whose husband is also working on a vaccine for COVID-19, Shaw says not only has she always had extremely high standards for cleanliness in the restaurant, but she believes masking and sanitation rules remain key.

“I think I’ve seen both sides of it from the health care perspective and as a business owner, and I still come to the same conclusion at the end of every day: safety first,” Shaw says. “If you were breathing cancer, you’d put a mask on, and this virus is a killer. A little thin piece of cloth on your face is really not that big of a deal if you think outside of yourself.”

Shaw isn’t alone in adhering to strict safety standards. In fact, the newly formed Spokane Hospitality Coalition and SAVE 509 are working hard to make sure people know just how seriously restaurant owners are taking precautions to ensure safe dining, says Derek Baziotis.

As the chair of the Spokane chapter of the statewide Hospitality Association, and a restaurant owner himself with BENE'S in Cheney, Baziotis says he hopes people will follow the three W’s: Wear a mask, wash your hands, and watch your distance.

“We are doing everything we can to keep it safe in our establishments,” Baziotis says. “Let’s get some butts in seats, let them know it is safe, and let them know we’re following the guidance.”

However, for some diners it may still be too risky to eat indoors, in which case, purchasing gift cards and takeout from favorite restaurants may be helpful, too.

WINTER PATIOS While many restaurants are still figuring out their Many restaurants got creative this spring with unique takeout offerings for customers who couldn’t dine in, and this fall could see a resurgence in creativity.

“I saw a lot of really cool ideas,” Baziotis says.

“I’m going to be really interested to see what business owners do.”

Shaw is among those who will be taking a new creative approach, as Chaps is set to start offering small baking classes on the days the restaurant is closed.

“For people who are afraid to come into the bakery, we’re gonna do some really small groups of 8 people or less because we can do it on days we’re closed and separate them out with an instructor,” Shaw says.

Classes could include lessons on pie making, cookies, seasonal breads and more, and information for how to sign up will be posted on Chaps’ social media and website.

Aside from owners getting creative, Anton says that he’d like to see more work from the state and federal governments on a new round of relief packages for those affected.

“How do we make sure we have a great restaurant and lodging scene in our future knowing that no matter what we do, we’ll have fewer restaurants, hotels, and entertainment facilities than we did in January of this year?” Anton asks. “How do we keep that key part of our community culture come next spring?”

Lastly, for the community’s part, Anton says the best thing to do is continue supporting local businesses throughout the winter and wear a mask to prevent the spread of the virus.

“You want to save a small business? You want to save jobs? We know masking works,” he says. “The faster we can knock this down, the faster we can turn back the rules that make running a business hard, and the faster we get back to normal.” ◆

plans for outdoor seating this winter, here are a few places that already have outdoor plans.

TRUE LEGENDS GRILL

For the first time, True Legends Grill recently put a tent cover over its patio and it expanded the number of heaters outside in hopes that people will be more comfortable sitting outdoors as the weather starts to turn.

“Normally this time of year we start winding our patio down, but we covered it so we’ll see what the demand is like out there as things get chillier,” General Manager Dan Barbieri says.

“Hopefully it gets a good reception, the first few nights have been pretty positive.” 1803 N Harvard Rd, Liberty Lake, truelegendsgrill.com, 892-3077

BRICK WEST BREWING CO.

With what’s likely the largest patio space in town, Brick West Brewing Co.’s massive outdoor plaza space will still be open for its fans this winter. Parts for a new canopy that will be heated had just come in when we checked in with General Manager Brian “Fro” Carpenter last week. He notes that the canopy will cover part of the patio and heating of some kind was in the works so the outdoor space can remain comfortable as fall ramps up. 1318 W. 1st Ave., brickwestbrewingco.com, 279-2982

DAVENPORT GRAND

After success last year, the Davenport Grand again plans to host outdoor rooftop igloos that are heated and can be reserved for small groups. Those are set to open up again on Oct. 29. For more information on the food and beverage options that come along with those reservations, keep an eye out on the hotel’s social media pages. 333 W. Spokane Falls Blvd., davenportigloos.com, 598-4340 ◆

VOLUME 3

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LONGHORN BARBECUE CO-OWNER ZAC SMITH

Tricks of the Trade Learn how to do takeout better

Winter is coming. And with a pandemic still raging, the survival of many of Spokane County’s most beloved restaurants could come down to takeout.

But as much as you may want to support them, you may have felt a little underwhelmed by some takeout or delivery experiences in the past.

A half-hour car ride can transform the incredible into the inedible. Saucy sandwiches can collapse into soggy messes. Crispy fries can sag into mush.

Fortunately, many local restaurants have adapted to the demands of takeout and have some advice for making takeout work for you.

CHOOSE TAKEOUT-FRIENDLY CUISINE

Beware of any dish that relies on a specific texture or a

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level of “doneness,” says Jon Brown, general manager of Ruins and a number of other local restaurants.

Like steak.

“You’re a person who enjoys a medium-rare steak ... if you like your beef cooked properly, if it’s going to be in a container, and you put that hot food into the container, it’s going to steam itself,” Brown says.

The steak could continue to cook in transit. A lot of fried food can lose its crispness along the way, too.

Unless they’re in a paper bag like when you order fast food, french fries are often “absolutely worthless,” he says.

“Don’t order fish and chips takeout,” Brown says.

“It’s going to suck when you get it.”

So when it comes to Ruins — which has a regularly rotating menu with different cuisines — they’ve chosen to focus on cuisines that survive the journey.

There’s a reason, he says, that certain types of food pop into your head when you think of “takeout.”

“If you’re anything like me, I think of Asian food, I think of Thai, I think of Chinese, I think of Mexican food, and Italian food,” Brown says.

Heck, some foods might even improve with takeout. Stews and curries are famous for tasting better the next day — as the flavors have more time to mix and mingle.

GET THE SAUCE ON THE SIDE

Alyssa Krafft, a manager at Wild Sage, says that Wild Sage’s chef designed an incredible duck bánh mì sandwich to be ideal for takeout. But how to avoid takeout sogginess with such a saucy sandwich? Simple.

“When we do it to-go, we put all the sauces on the SPONSORED CONTENT

side,” Krafft says. Diners at home can apply the sauce and the fillings exactly how they like, right when they’re ready to eat it.

They do the same thing with certain pastas, separating the sauce to avoid gumminess.

GOOD THINGS COME IN GOOD PACKAGES

It’s not just the food that’s important. It’s the container.

Krafft says that Wild Sage invested in sugar-cane composted containers that keep “hot foods hot and cold foods cold.

“It really doesn’t sweat. The packaging doesn’t get greasy-looking,” she says. And the wide packages with clear tops allow chefs to showcase the food even before the customer opens it.

ORDER AT LEAST 30 MINUTES AHEAD

Maisa Abudayha, program director for Feast World Kitchen, says part of the secret for their rotating crew of international chefs to make great takeout food comes down to timing. Finish a dish too soon, and it can get cold or dry out. Start a dish too late, and the customer can get impatient waiting curb-side. And since freshness matters in so many meals, they want to get the timing just right.

Calling — or ordering online — ahead of time gives a restaurant enough lead time to nail the timing of your order. And keep in mind, since restaurants have to pay for the packaging, it can cost them more to do a to-go order than a regular dine-in meal. It doesn’t hurt to tip a little better, if you can. ◆

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2918 S GRAND BLVD #2530

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SPOTLIGHT

SALA THAI

West Plains Mains Airway Heights is a food destination in its own right, from international eats to Texas barbecue With two casinos, an Air Force base and rapidly growing housing developments, Airway Heights has, in recent decades, become much more than an outlying suburb of the Spokane metro area. In many ways, and especially so when considering the widely varied dining options in the 99001 zip code, Airway Heights is a destination unto itself. Here’s a sampling of restaurants to visit next time you’re in the area, or that should give you a good reason to make the short drive out to the West Plains.

SALA THAI

One of the best things about Airway Heights’ food scene is the diversity of international cuisines featured there, ranging from Korean barbecue to authentic Thai. The latter you’ll find at Sala Thai, operating since 2002. From all the various curries to stir-fried veggies with noodles, Sala offers the Thai dishes we all crave, including seasonal eats like fall’s pumpkin curry. House specials you won’t find anywhere else — broken out into their own section of the menu — include yum gai tod, the restaurant’s exclusive recipe for crispy chicken and ground, dry-roasted rice with veggies and lime sauce dressing, on a bed of lettuce, cucumbers and cilantro. 12914 W. Sunset Hwy., salathaispokane.com, 244-4800

NORTHERN QUEST RESORT & CASINO

The options are almost endless at the sprawling, swanky resort-casino complex, ranging from quick-service eats to a sports bar and a steakhouse. While not all of Northern Quest’s dining establishments are currently open, others are operating with reduced operating hours and some with revised menus. That considered, if you crave something specific, it’s best to check online before you head out. Among its most popular options, EPIC SPORTS BAR, with a menu of classic pub fare like nachos, wings, burgers and more, is one of the resort restaurants currently open daily, making it

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a go-to for catching this fall’s games on its 30-foot TV. MASSELOW'S STEAKHOUSE, meanwhile, is currently only open for dinner Wednesday through Sunday. In a special new format, guests can select a fixed-price three- ($70) or four-course ($90) dinner, with multiple choices for each course. Reservations at Masselow’s are also currently required, by phone or online. 100 N. Hayford Rd., northernquest.com, 242-7000

LONGHORN BARBECUE

A true Inland Northwest classic, the original Longhorn Barbecue on Highway 2, located just before drivers heading west reach the heart of Airway Heights, has been a go-to for its hearty chuckwagon-style barbecue dishes for more than six decades and counting. To expand its reach in the community with limited dine-in seating, Longhorn has added several individually portioned takeout meals ranging from its famous barbecue sandwiches with a drink and a side, to family-sized dinner platters and mega-sized portions of its housemade chili or Texas-style sides. Seriously, you can order up to a gallon of Longhorn’s chili, baked beans or side salads! Find the complete to-go menu on its website. 7611 W. Sunset Hwy., thelonghornbbq.com, 838-8372

D'BALI ASIAN BISTRO

After opening in late 2018, D’Bali Asian Bistro on the main Sunset Highway strip of Airway Heights quickly developed a loyal following. Chef-owner “Mama” Jeannie Choi treats each guest like family with her top-notch hospitality and the attention to detail that goes into each dish on the menu of Southeast Asian fare. Meals begin with traditional Korean banchan, small, complimentary (with the purchase of any entree) side dishes like dried seaweed, pickled veggies and kimchi, served with steamed rice. Save room for the rest of your meal, though, like Choi’s to-die-for chicken wings in a caramelized sauce with garlic chips, cilantro and lime. Also on the same tier of culinary greatness is Choi’s locally famous boat noodle soup, a Thai classic SPONSORED CONTENT

similar to pho, featuring 11 different herbs and spices in a rich bone broth. 12924 W. Sunset Hwy., dabaliasianbistro.com, 230-8629

THREE PEAKS KITCHEN + BAR

On Airway Heights’ west end, the newish Spokane Tribe Casino, which opened in mid-2018, offers an expansive in-house restaurant with plenty of family- and wallet-friendly options. Offering a mix of casual and fine-dining fare, Three Peaks has it all, from gourmet pub burgers to fish and chips, and traditional Italian-inspired pastas to hearty, country fried steak.

Or, build your own dinner plate by choosing a protein and two sides to go with it. Full-service brunch is served on weekends from 9 am to 3 pm, offering mimosas, a bloody mary bar and plenty of sweet and savory breakfast eats. Where Three Peaks really shines is its amazing food and drink deals, including $2 drafts available all day, every day. The casino is also home to a more casual, quick-service cafe, Speelya’s Den, and the craft cocktail, wine and beer bar Whaluks.

13918 W. Hwy. US-2, spokanetribecasino.com, 8181547

RUSTY MOOSE

When the pandemic hit, local owners of the Rusty Moose quickly pivoted to make dining as safe and convenient as possible. Order online for pickup or delivery directly on the restaurant’s website, where diners can also find a rundown of safety and sanitation protocols being implemented every day. If take-out is your preference, the Rusty Moose team has compiled a special menu for just that, breaking it down into sections for travel-friendly appetizers, soups/salads, handhelds, wood-fired flatbreads and “big fork entrees.” Steak kits to cook up your own feast at home, featuring the Rusty Moose’s 45-day aged ribeye, cheddar mashed potatoes, asparagus, beef rub seasoning and finishing butter, are also available for $35 or $60. 9105 W. Sunset Hwy., rustymoosespokane.com, 747-5579 ◆

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SPOTLIGHT

The Whole Nine

Head to Nine Mile Falls for real Texas BBQ, good espresso and beautiful scenery For Rod Smith, owner of BIG ROD'S TEXAS BBQ, business this year has been better than ever.

“Each year is getting bigger and bigger. If you have a good product, people are going to come, and that’s what’s happening,” Smith says.

Smith, who grew up in Tyler, Texas, decided to start up the food truck in the Nine Mile Falls area in 2016. The ex-football player took an interest in BBQ, and says the area needed a real taste of Texas BBQ. “A lot of people say ‘Texas BBQ,’ but what they don’t realize is it’s all about smoking the meat, not the sauce,” Smith says.

“Kansas City is about the sauce. Carolina is the sauce and slaw.

Texas is just about smoked meat. You smoke it for 22-30 hours like I do, and it’s true Texas BBQ and you really don’t need sauce on a lot of this stuff.”

Smith knows his way around smoked meat, but he says his most popular menu item is probably the baked beans. He puts pulled pork that’s been smoked for six hours, he says, and it can be a meal of its own.

“Everybody talks about the beans,” he says.

The food truck usually sets up at the NINE MILE STORE, but Smith will also cater weddings or occasionally move to a place like RIVER RIDGE HARDWARE in Spokane. Make sure to catch it before he closes down for the winter in November.

Another great option for takeout in Nine Mile Falls is THE TIN CUP CAFE. Owners Blaine and Dee Singlestar owned the cafe, just across from Sontag Park, for less than a year before the pandemic hit. But since April, Blaine Singlestar says business hasn’t been too bad. It helps that there’s a yard and patio with plenty of outside seating.

“There can’t be a more beautiful setting,” he says.

Head there for one of their eight burgers, including Blaine’s favorite, the BarnBuster with bacon, eggs, ham and cheese.

Also choose from other classics like chicken strips, deli roast beef and a philly. An added bonus: The Singlestars owned the former Otis Joe Espresso in Otis Orchards, so you can get the same tasty espresso here if you have missed out. ◆

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MASTERS BREWHOUSE

Rural Restaurants Getting your grub on in the Deer Park and Elk region Drive north from Spokane for about 40 minutes and you’ll hit Deer Park, a quaint town of just over 4,000 people. A mere 15 miles from there is the unincorporated town of Elk, which is even more rural. Put together, this area is best known for its natural beauty, its lake and farms and even its golf course. And while it’s not exactly urban, it boasts plenty of locally owned restaurants that are worth a stop.

Whether you’re simply picking up takeout or enjoying dine-in service in a socially distanced restaurant or on an outdoor patio, you’ve got plenty of options to choose from. In fact, you could easily snag breakfast, lunch and dinner at different places within a 20-mile radius, and all of it would be delicious.

Consider PAULINE'S PLACE, which makes for a perfect stop-over if you’re in the mood for old-school diner breakfast. And let’s be honest, when aren’t you? This regional institution carries all the hallmarks of a classic eatery, from omelettes to chicken fried steaks to biscuits and gravy, as well as a drive-thru espresso bar.

Pauline’s Place moved to its current location off the Newport Highway in Elk earlier this year, but they’re still serving up the same reliable dishes you’d expect.

A place that was in fashion before lockdowns and limited capacities, KC's TAKE & BAKE PIZZA is a no-brainer when it comes to getting good food on the go. You can choose from about a dozen different varieties of pizzas on their menu, including standards like Hawaiian and double pepperoni, and the aptly named SPONSORED CONTENT

Kitchen Sink, which comes overloaded with a little bit of everything. Bake ’em at home and they’re fresher than any delivery could be.

If you’re more in the mood for bar-style food and handhelds, head over to FIRST STREET BAR & GRILL, which offers a delectable menu of burgers and steaks. They’ve got all the pubgrub mainstays you’d expect, including nachos, wings and chicken strips, and they also offer gluten-free and vegetarian options for any diners with culinary restrictions.

THE SALTY DOG EATERY is a family-style restaurant serving up hefty portions. The place is probably best known for its seafood selection, with hand-battered and fried cod at the top of the menu. You don’t have to go the route of the pirate, though, if you’d opt instead for a wide selection of burgers and cuts of steak.

On the hunt for some delicious craft beer?

Look no further than MASTERS BREWHOUSE, where you can unwind with a pint or three of their signature, house-made craft brews. Beyond their pours, though, you can indulge in their weekly burger specials and taco Tuesday deals, and they have plenty of TVs so that you can get your professional sports fix. If you’re being especially diligent about social distancing guidelines, Masters offers patio seating as well as to-go growlers.

For something distinctly international, you might want to go for takeout at THAI GARDEN. It offers all the spicy, savory staples you’d expect — pad thai, curries and filling noodle dishes — and it’s the kind of cuisine that’s even better and more comforting as the weather turns cooler. ◆

(509) 326-0386 Open daily 6am-2pm SPOKANE [ NORTH ]

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225 W RIVERSIDE AVE

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3029 E 5TH AVE

BREW WERKS SPOKANE [ NORTH ] GARLAND DISTRICT

603 W GARLAND AVE

VOLUME 3

21

INTERVIEW

A MAX NAPOLEON

Q&A with Ben Meharg MAX at Mirabeau Park Hotel

The hotel had been a Spokane Valley destination for decades when a 2005 renovation offered something new for guests and area diners alike: MAX at Mirabeau. Since then, it has continued to impress, winning awards from such entities as Wine Spectator magazine and Epicurean Delight.

Meharg is the restaurant general manager and hotel beverage manager.

What is unique and special about your place?

MEHARG: MAX at Mirabeau continues to offer award-winning service year after year.

Paired with an unforgettable experience, MAX strives to be an exceptional Spokane restaurant, which serves as a destination for culinary and entertainment needs. We cater to diners of all ages with our extraordinary breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, happy hour and weekend brunch offerings. Our experienced culinary team behind the eclectic bistro-style food at MAX strives to deliver delicious cuisine by using only the best

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products with an eye-catching presentation. Our MAX lounge has over 450 bottles of local and regional wines, 12 draft beers on tap (including our house pale ale made exclusively by Twelve String Brewing Company) and a variety of signature cocktails. During the spring, summer and fall seasons, enjoy our scenic outdoor patio, which seats up to 55 guests under our umbrella-covered tables surrounded by our floral garden. MAX offers two happy hours, a weekend bloody mary bar, live music on select evenings, a monthly “First Wednesday” Wine tasting and Art Exhibition and annual Halloween and New Year’s Eve parties.

How does the restaurant industry contribute to the community?

We strive to offer the best wages, bonuses and positive work environments for our team members. We not only share meals, celebrate occasions and do life together, but we have also traveled together. We do our very best to partner with other local artisans, producers and farmers, as well as other businesses. Networking with other women and minority entrepreneurs has been a big priority for us. We love our community and appreciate the chance to not only showcase our food and culture but the relationships we get to cultivate.

Every year, MAX at Mirabeau partners with “Dine Out to Feed Spokane” and our contributions assisted, SPONSORED CONTENT

along with other local restaurants, in distributing over 250,000 pounds of food to local charitable meal sites in our area that feed the hungry for free. This resulted in just over 450 meals every day of the year for those in need.

We use seasonal, local ingredients that help keep our menu fresh and allows our chefs to experiment and create new recipes that may become future staple menu items in MAX.

Restaurants have had definite challenges responding to the statewide closure.

Hotels and similar travel destinations have a whole unique set of challenges.

What are some of those challenges and how have you responded?

At MAX at Mirabeau, we responded by creating a limited menu and then promoted other dining options such as room service, “grab ’n’ go” breakfast, takeout, curbside to-go and something we have never done before — food and beverage delivery! In addition, we have partnered with a food delivery service, Chow Now, to increase our visibility and delivery options.

Finally, we are responding to all positive online reviews and apologizing and attempting to make amends for any poor reviews along with putting a large focus on providing top-notch customer service. ◆

s e h c i w d n a S with Sass

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2706 N MONROE ST., SPOKANE • 509-340-9905 723 1ST ST., CHENEY • 509-235-1192

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3420 EAST SPRAGUE AVE

Open Every Day for Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

• Country Style Breakfasts • Specialty Burgers • Salads & Sandwiches • Choice Steaks • Homemade Soups • Full Bar & Banquet Room harvesterrestaurant.com

245-3552 SPOKANE [ NORTH ]

3506 N. DIVISION ST

SPANGLE

410 WEST FIRST AVENUE

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Open 7 days a week 9am-6pm

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COLBERT GREENBLUFF

8518 E GREENBLUFF RD

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OPEN DAILY Mon - Sun 11AM - 10PM • 509 934-1945 • hopmountaintaproom.com MEAD

14017 N NEWPORT HWY SUITE G

SPOKANE VALLEY

11703 E SPRAGUE AVE

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509.487.6546 | jackanddans.com

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2118 NORTH RUBY ST STE A

Specializing in Chinese cuisine, King’s Restaurant has been proudly serving the Inland Northwest for the past 37 years.

Dine In & Take Out Closed Mondays

Locally Owned & Operated KingsRestaurantSpokaneValley.com 509-928-0513 1829 N MONROE ST

SPOKANE VALLEY

17005 E SPRAGUE AVE

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25

BRUNCH

Wake Up & Eat

Get your brunch on at these delicious Spokane County mainstays They've always said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and yet so many of us skip it. The beauty of brunch, meanwhile, is that you can still enjoy breakfast foods without having to roll out of bed at the crack of dawn. It’s a boon for anyone who doesn’t consider themselves a morning person. Here are a few Spokane establishments serving up some of the finest eggs, bacon and pancakes you can find.

BRUNCHEONETTE

This inviting breakfast spot that sits right off Monroe serves slightly upscale comfort food, though none of it is too spendy or unapproachable — try out the brunch burger, biscuits and chorizo gravy or the shrimp and grits. Along with their menu of mimosas (flavors include pina colada, strawberry rhubarb and brulee peach), the restaurant’s bright, clean design actually serves as a nice pick-me-up in the morning. 1011 W. Broadway Ave., bruncheonette. com, 443-5968

CHAPS DINER & BAKERY

THE YARDS BRUNCHEON 26

VOLUME 3

Nestled in the Latah Creek area, Chaps is one of the best brunch spots Spokane has to offer. You can’t really go wrong with any of their menu items, but they’re best known for their oatmeal (even if you’ve never been a huge oatmeal fan, you just might be converted), and the decadent blueberry muffin French toast. Once you’ve polished off your brunch, you’ll no doubt make a beeline to their selection of fresh baked goods. 4237 Cheney Spokane Rd., chapsgirl.com, 6244182

FRANK'S DINER

Even if you’ve never eaten at this beloved Spokane institution, you’ve probably noticed it: It’s located inside a genuine vintage train car, situated on Second Avenue near the Maple Street Bridge. But if you have dined at Frank’s, you know all about its appeal: the hefty portions, the quirky ambience, the wide-ranging breakfast menu and especially those famous hash browns.

1516 W. Second Ave.; also,10929 N. Newport Highway, franksdiners.com

THE SATELLITE DINER

Diners that serve all-day breakfast are certainly diamonds in the rough, but how many places in the downtown core are still serving breakfast after all the bars have closed down? The Satellite is one of those places, and with its full bar on one side of the building, you can always enjoy a cocktail with your meal.

They’re best known for their plate-sized pancakes, their hearty eggs benedict and their protein- and potato-packed Satellite Scramble. 425 W. Sprague Ave., satellitediner.com, 624-3952

THE YARDS BRUNCHEON

In pre-pandemic times, this cozy Kendall Yards spot almost always seems to be packed, with prospective diners waiting on the sidewalk outside. But you can still get their delicious food to go, and you won’t be disappointed.

Amongst their signatures are the breakfast poutine and chicken and waffles, and the entrees include steak and eggs, huevos rancheros and a variety of breakfast sandwiches. 1248 W. Summit Pkwy., theyardsbruncheon.com, 2905952 ◆

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It’s all about our community and creating a vibrant region that is connected, inspired and driven to succeed. We can’t do this work alone. We work with local businesses, our community, non-profits, and the surrounding region to build a robust regional economy. It’s this partnership that helps create the place where organization come together to advocate for the region, drive strategic growth, and champion a talented workforce.

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Online Ordering TheBakeryInMedicalLake.com 13030 E INDIANA AVE

MEDICAL LAKE

123 SOUTH LEFEVRE ST

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Over 50 wines by the glass.

Full Dinner menu. Daily Specials.

(509) 315-8623 Live Music Thursday, Friday and Saturday leftbankwinebar.com

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SPOKANE [ DOWNTOWN ]

108 N WASHINGTON

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R Reeo op peen nin ing g SSo o n o ! o n !

Chec

littleeurorestaurant.com 509.891.7662

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703-7455

SPOKANE [ NORTH ] HILLYARD

5303 N MARKET ST

SPOKANE VALLEY

517 NORTH PINES RD

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littlegardencafe.com

SPOKANE [ NORTH ]

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littlenoodlespokane.com

9910 N Waikiki Rd 509.309-2609 SPOKANE [ NORTH ] GARLAND DISTRICT

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713 W GARLAND AVE

Spokane’s Legendary BarbeCUE

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509.443.5023 | 6325 N. Wall St. Spokane, WA | lostboysgarage.com |

SPOKANE [ NORTH ]

6325 N WALL ST

Mangrove Café & Bakery Located in a charming remodeled home.

Enjoy your meal in the extensive gardens. weather permitting

Featuring in-house baked goods, specializing in authentic Thai cuisine and international dishes Prices & items are subject to change

509

HOURS Tue – Sat 9am – 2pm / 5pm – 8pm (Reserve by 2PM) 926-2519| www.mangrovespokane.com | /mangrovespokane

SPOKANE VALLEY

18 N BOWDISH RD

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sector broug ht to you by These in part by leading institu weekly pages are Cares part of a local tions and Inlander, and Act funding. With marketing the goal of businesses to help via the links effort in suppo promo balan below, as rt of the local restau cing commerce and te the Spokane Count rants, shops Safe busi public safety y economy, hospitality more and more to ness prac share their , you can follow along supported tice reso the Inland stories and er urces Kind invite your here in the special editor nessNotC support. ovid.org community i • Fina bu

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Spokane

401 W Main 509.242.3943

SPOKANE • CDA

Coeur d’Alene

themangotreerestaurants.com

1726 W Kathleen Ave 208.930.1416

SPOKANE [ SOUTH ]

3011 S GRAND BLVD

VOLUME 3

29

LUNCH

SMACKY'S ON BROADWAY

Any 'Wich Way

There’s no wrong way to make a sandwich, and there are many local shops to choose from Is there any lunch more customizable than the humble sandwich? From pesto chicken paninis to the classic grilled cheese, the options begin with whatever you can fit in between two slices of bread. It’s a basic concept, but here are a few local options that are anything but basic.

HIGH NOONER

Spokane’s High Nooner has been a delicious lunchtime staple of the community since 1992, pumping out fresh sandwiches loaded with ingredients. General Manager Jim Lucas says the “hands-down” favorite is still the Unforgettable Nooner, which comes with turkey breast, cream cheese, bacon, tomato and avocado. Pair that, Lucas says, alongside another customer favorite, the chicken bowtie pasta and maybe one of the Nooner’s homemade carrot cakes with lemon. The business had to make some adjustments to normal hours early on (even temporarily closing one of its four locations), but Lucas says “we’ve got some very loyal followers in the area after 28 years in the business. There’s a couple key people who put their heads to the grindstone and made things work.”

237 W. Riverside Ave., 838-5288; 523 N. Pines Rd., Spokane Valley, 924-5226; 410 E. Holland Ave., Spokane, 466-1516; 1116 W. Broadway Ave., 3240467; highnooner.com

SMACKY'S ON BROADWAY

Smacky’s on Broadway is all about encouraging variety, and the possibilities seem endless at this Spokane Valley sandwich joint, situated near an auto parts store, truck stop and manufacturing shops. Here, you can build your own sandwich or order from a large menu with options like the SmackAttak Club, stuffed with turkey, ham, roast beef, pepperjack and cheddar cheese (not a veggie in sight!). There’s also the Pastrami Smackdown, with a half-pound of pastrami, swiss, provolone, pickles, onions, tomatoes and sweet-hot honey.

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(Don’t worry, vegetarians. Smacky’s has you covered, too.) In addition to its sandwiches, Smacky’s also offers soups, salads and even a catering service. 6415 E. Broadway Ave., smackyssandwiches.com, 535-4230

DOMINI'S

It would be downright irresponsible if we didn’t mention Domini’s here. This sandwich shop, located in downtown Spokane, has been a local favorite for decades. Its secret ingredient: meat. And lots of it. No gimmicks. No crazy ingredients. Domini’s sticks to the basics. Pick your favorite deli meats (ham, corned beef, roast beef, pastrami and salami) and order by the pound. This legendary sandwich shop is only open for takeout under COVID. 703 W. Sprague Ave., dominispokane.com, 747-2324

LEFEVRE ST. BAKERY & CAFE

Victoria Shoemaker thought that it was going to be easy. She had the cafe. The furnishings and appliances.

The employees. The menu. It was January 2020 when she took over the Lefevre Street Bakery and Cafe, and she thought she’d be running the same business that had been there since 2016. But everything changed thanks to the pandemic. “This is tough,” Shoemaker says. Still, even with a major dip in customers (either due to COVID or the wildfire smoke in September), she’s managed to keep the Medical Lake business chugging along. In addition to its massive cinnamon rolls, Lefevre Street also serves up delicious sandwiches on fresh-baked hoagies and buns, like the prime rib dip and the Cubano, both of which are popular items among customers, as well as a “ton of breakfast sandwiches. The secret ingredient, she says, is “way too much butter in everything.” 123 S. Lefevre St., Medical Lake, thebakeryinmedicallake.com, 299-3843

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with a sandwich, you might check out the Mason Jar in Cheney. It’s best known for its sandwiches, especially the Mediterranean, which is loaded with turkey, feta, marinated artichoke hearts, red onions, sundried tomato and aioli, says owner Douglas LaBar. The Mason Jar’s Tuscana, with sliced ham, bacon, provolone, baked egg and garlic aioli is also up there, he says. The cafe has been a mainstay for college students in need of a latte and free Wi-Fi, so LaBar says he anticipates slower summers regardless of the pandemic. Order online for pickup at themasonjar101. com, or pop in for a visit during brunch. The Mason Jar has more than 50 seats available between its indoor and outdoor tables. “Our breakfast and brunch are stellar,” LaBar says. “A lot of people only come out on the weekends but we do breakfast every day of the week until 11.” 101 F St., Cheney, themasonjar101. com, 359-8052

GARLAND SANDWICH SHOPPE

Take an 8-inch pickle. Cut it lengthwise. Scoop out the seeds. Now fill it with lettuce, mayo, tomato, stoneground mustard, turkey, ham, bacon and cheddar cheese. That’s what they call a Big Dill at the Garland Sandwich Shoppe, now 12 years and running in Spokane’s Garland District. “Business has been really good and we’ve been really well supported here,” says owner Kristen Speller. Although the shop has had to reduce its hours to10 am-2 pm, Monday through Friday, the shop has seen an increase in sales since COVID hit, Speller says. “We’re getting more business in just those four hours a day.” Seating is also limited and the shop has shifted to mostly online sales now, but Speller says the menu is still the same. “I think a big part of our success is just how we treat customers. We know everyone by name. People treat us like bartenders. We welcome it. It’s a good distraction from what’s going on in the world.” 3903 N. Madison St., garlandsandwich.com, 326-2405 ◆

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BURGERS

WOLFFY'S HAMBURGERS

Where's the Beef?

A rundown of local burger joints serving up goodness between buns There's nothing like a good burger. It’s arguably the quintessential American food, and though every burger more or less consists of the same basic parts, no two taste alike. Here’s a handful of Spokane staples serving up indisputably great burgers, from cheap, to-go eats to bigger bites you’ll need two hands to eat.

DICK'S HAMBURGERS

Dick’s is a Spokane institution, a local landmark as recognizable as the Pavillion or the Riverfront Park clock tower. It’s a fast-food spot that’s been around for decades and whose menu remains refreshingly uncomplicated all these years later. The prices have barely been affected by 21st-century inflation, too. One could argue you’re not a true local until you’ve walked up to the Dick’s window and ordered a bag full of Whammys to go. 10 E. Third Ave., 747-2481

INCREDIBURGER & EGGS

One of the many local establishments spearheaded by chef Adam Hegsted, this downtown spot delivers decadent flavors without breaking the bank. From its Pure Gold burger, which boasts foie gras mayo and chianti jam, to the PB&J (which is exactly like it sounds), you really can’t go wrong. Pair a burger with a rich, creamy milkshake, and make it boozy if you’re so inclined. 909 W. First Ave., incrediburgerandeggs.com, 443-4215

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RON'S DRIVE-IN

This wonderfully retro Spokane Valley spot has sat on East Sprague Avenue since the late 1950s, and its distinctive red-and-yellow interior is bound to give you flashbacks to a simpler time. Opt for their signature half-pound Big R, complete with special “R” sauce, or the quarter-pound cheeseburger with all the fixings, which pair perfectly with the appropriately named pail of golden brown french fries. 12502 E. Sprague Ave., 924-6853

THE THRIFTY SCOTSMAN

Just down the street from Ron’s is another Valley mainstay, open since 1980 and locally famous for its wood-paneled interior and steady stream of customers. The Scotsman is also known for its visually distinct burgers, which are served on rectangular poor boy buns. And the name turns out to be right on the money: It’s a cheap but satisfying meal, whether you choose the Big Papa or the Super Bacon burger.

12024 E. Sprague Ave., thethriftyscotsman.com, 9282214

WADDELL'S NEIGHBORHOOD PUB & GRILL

This neighborhood gastropub offers all the traditional barroom grub you’d expect, but their burgers are worth the trip. There’s something there for everyone, from HaSPONSORED CONTENT

waiian-inspired flavors to double burgers dripping with melted Cougar Gold cheese. But if you’re feeling particularly gluttonous, check out the Defibrillator Burger: It’s bursting with ham, bacon, jalapenos, mozzarella sticks and marinara sauce. That’s a full meal right there.

4318 S. Regal St., waddellspubandgrill.com

WISCONSINBURGER

For a slice of Midwestern cuisine in the Inland Northwest, look no further than this burger oasis, which offers up fresh toppings and rich cheeses on its freshly ground patties. Just one visit is never enough — you’ll want to go back to try every burger at least once. Don’t sleep on the velvety frozen custards and all the delicious deep-fried sides, from cheese curds to beer-battered brats, and go wild at the expansive condiment bar. 916 S. Hatch Ave., wisconsinburger.com, 241-3083

WOLFFY'S HAMBURGERS

An old-school diner with ’50s flair, Wolffy’s has been a staple of the Gonzaga neighborhood for years and — with its chrome-rimmed lunch counter — is the next best thing to a time machine. The menu is delicious and no-frills, and the food is made right in front of you on the griddle. There’s also a bigger location in Airway Heights (12807 W. 14th Ave.), but it’s the original spot that’s so distinctively Spokane. 1229 N. Hamilton St., wolffyshamburgers.com, 487-1587 ◆

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A cozy colorful spot in Liberty Lake to enjoy excellent brick oven fired artisan-style pizza as well as pasta dishes, salad and shareable plates.

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HANDHELDS

The burrito is a versatile handheld treat. Throw eggs in a tortilla and you can enjoy breakfast while on the run. Wrap up some meat, beans, rice, veggies and cheese to enjoy a full meal in the palm of your hands. Sure, Spokane might be a thousand miles north of the Mexican border. There’s still plenty of burritos to be found around town. Here are just some of the places you can choose from.

ATILANO'S

With multiple locations throughout the region, Atilano’s is the place to get cheap, delicious Mexcian eats any time of the day. Their giant burritos are packed with meat (or beans if you go with the veggie option), and you can pretty much find any style of beef, chicken, pork or fish your heart desires on the menu. Oh, and you can also order any breakfast burrito all day. 802 W. Francis Ave., 725 W. Third Ave., 3624 E. Sprague Ave., Facebook: Atilano’s

DE LEON'S TACO & BAR

Mayra and Sergio De Leon have been providing the Inland Northwest fresh Mexican flavors since the mid-2000s with De Leon Foods grocery store and Sergio’s Tortillas. Since then, they’ve expanded by adding another grocery store and three restaurants. At De Leon’s Taco & Bar (locations on Spokane’s north side, South Hill and Gonzaga District), they have a huge variety of burrito options. Their specialties include the Baja Burrito, Rebel Burrito stuffed with french fries and Sergio’s Burrito — try it with pork chile verde smothered in enchilada sauce. 2718 E. 57th Ave., deleonstacoandbar.com, 381-5540

GERARDO'S AUTHENTIC MEXICAN FOOD

If you had a “fast food” joint like the Cheney Gerardo’s while in college, odds are you spent quite a bit of late nights in the drivethrough line. Much like the burrito menu at Atilano’s, the options seem endless. Take your palate on a trip around the U.S. with the Arizona, California and Texano burritos. You can also find them on North Monroe in Spokane. 723 First St., Cheney, Facebook: Gerardo’s, 235-1192

SLICK ROCK BURRITO

Opening in 1996, Slick Rock has become a Spokane staple. You can choose from eight specialty burritos — like the Veggie Thai and Bar-B-Que Burrito — or you can build your own. They provide six house-made salsas with spice levels ranging from mild to “insanity.”

Whatever you choose, might we suggest getting a side of peanut sauce and changing your life forever. 2926 S. Grand Blvd., slickrockburrito.com, 747-6041

SWEETO BURRITO

Wrap City

Several spots to grab a burrito to-go throughout the region

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Sweeto Burrito arrived in Spokane in 2016. The luchador-themed spot takes a unique approach to the wrap game with options like the All American, Break Neck, Buff Chick — each loaded with french fries or tater tots — or the titular Sweeto Burrito made with sweet pork and “Neato sauce.” Now, the small chain has locations in the Gonzaga District and Spokane Valley with more than a dozen others throughout the U.S. 15705 E. Broadway Ave., Spokane Valley, sweetoburrito.com, 928-9810

TACO VADO

Spokane’s burrito newcomer opened earlier this year, just a couple months before the pandemic hit. But that certainly hasn’t stopped the tiny drive-through stand from making a big impact. They keep their burrito menu simple with three options: breakfast, lunch and the Vego Vado. If you’re looking for a suggestion on meat choice, try the Adovada pork. 1602 N. Ash St., tacovado.com, 420-5708 ◆ SPONSORED CONTENT

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SLICE

FLYING GOAT

Pizza Time Seven great options in Spokane Don't sleep on pizza. Sure, it’s now easier than ever to order in a fancy dinner, or a burger and fries, or some pad thai. But there’s still something about opening that box and ripping off a slice of your favorite pizza. Sometimes, you gotta stick to the classics.

In Spokane, there’s enough variety that you never have to go a day feeling like you’ve had the same pizza twice. Change it up. Heck, go one week eating a different pizza every night, if you have the stomach for it. Here’s a list to get you started.

Flying Goat

At the Flying Goat, no pizza tastes like another. Each has a unique flavor with a delicate balance of quality ingredients that melt in your mouth. If you’re not sure what to order, try the Fairview: heavy cream, house cheese blend, house back bacon, pears, gorgonzola cheese crumbles, and white balsamic reduction. Because of the thin crust, it’s not too filling, so it’s easy to scarf down the entire thing before you realize just how great it is. 3318 W. Northwest Blvd., theflyinggoat.com, 327-8277

Park Inn

It’s all about the cheese at the Park Inn. And why shouldn’t it be? Cheese is the most important ingredi-

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combines elegantly for a slice of pizza that you know was carefully crafted. If you haven’t tried it yet, you’re missing out. 829 E. Boone Ave., dinardispizzapasta. com, 960-7949

Veraci Pizza

ent, after all. Here, the cheese molds together on top of the tasty sauce, a dense layer of chewy goodness that will leave you satisfied. It’s a great place not only for pizza, but to knock out a pitcher or two of beer with some friends. 103 W. Ninth Ave., parkinnspokane. com, 624-8111

Located in Kendall Yards, Veraci may have some of the best wood-fired pizza in town. Whether you want a chicken pesto pizza or a pepperoni, Veraci lets the ingredients shine. All it takes is one slice and you’ll be hooked. It gets bonus points for one of the best patios in town, with a view of the river and the city. 1333 W. Summit Pkwy., veracispokane.com, 389-0029

Pizza Pipeline

DAVID'S PIZZA

Pizza Pipeline doesn’t mess around. With six locations across the Inland Northwest, including in Spokane, local chain Pizza Pipeline is often the go-to for a traditional pizza delivery. Whether it’s a simple cheese pizza or something more adventurous, each slice makes you feel like this is the way pizza should taste.

1403 N. Division St., 10411 N. Newport Hwy., 2718 E. 57th Ave., 1724 W. Wellesley Ave., 415 N. Sullivan Rd., Spokane Valley, 8901 E. Trent Ave., Spokane Valley; pizzapipeline.com

Dinardi's Pizza & Pasta

Dinardi’s, near Gonzaga, knows its way around Italian food — the family that owns it hails from Italy.

So it’s no surprise they’ve mastered pizza, too. The New York-style pizza is flavorful, hearty and fresh all at once. The sauce, the crust, the seasoning, all of it SPONSORED CONTENT

The Elvis (spicy Thai peanut sauce, seasoned chicken, peppers) and the Da Vinci (feta, basil pesto, tomatoes, garlic) are just a small slice of the many handcrafted pizzas that David’s dishes up for hungry customers. As a founding member of the Spokane Hospitality Coalition, David’s has pledged to uphold rigorous standards for workplace sanitization and public safety. 803 W Mallon Ave. 509-483-7460. davidspizza.com

Bennidito's

Bennidito’s is a neighborhood institution on the lower South Hill, and it now has a brewpub on Sprague Avenue. In this welcoming, friendly environment, the hefty pizzas fit in perfectly. When you’re finished, you feel like you’ve just had a hearty meal with people you want to be around, and what more could you ask for? 1426 S. Lincoln St., 1909 E. Sprague Ave., benniditos.com ◆

let’s have a beer.

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VOLUME 3

808 W MAIN ST STE 108

45

Big Flavor in Small Packages

SWEETS

The region’s cupcake spots know how to deliver delicious, sweet treats Someone wise once said, “You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy cupcakes, and that’s basically the same thing.”

In the era of COVID-19, self-care is important. And that means treating yourself as often as you can. What better way to do that and support your local cupcakery?

Here, we’ve compiled a list of some options in Spokane County where you can get your dose of happiness in cupcake form.

LILAC CITY BAKERY / CELEBRATIONS BAKERY

If you want a cupcake to make you feel extra special, you gotta go custom, and at Lilac City Bakery (Spokane) and Celebrations Bakery (Spokane Valley), everything is custom- and scratch-made. Owner Amber Owens likes to have fun with her sweets, so expect humorously and seasonally decorated cupcakes. (Get a preview on Instagram at @lilaccitybakery and @celebrationsbakeryofficial.) The two bakeries were hit hard after wedding season was mostly canceled, resulting in a massive loss in revenue from custom goods, Owens says. But retail sales and support from the community have helped them stay afloat. In addition to cupcakes, Lilac City Bakery and Celebrations also bake brownies, cake pops, donuts and custom cakes, most of which can be found at local coffee shops like Wakeup Call, Shotzy’s Coffee and Daily Habit. Lilac City Bakery: 1215 N. Ruby St., Spokane, lilaccitybakery.com, 315-4958 ; Celebrations Bakery: 315 S. Sullivan Rd., Spokane Valley, celebrationssweetboutique.com, 315-5973

SWEET FROSTINGS

Owned and operated by the mother-daughter duo Jessica and Sally Winfrey, Sweet Frostings offers a wide range of baked goods that are as intricately decorated as they are numerous. Cookies, macaroons, coffee and cakes round out the rest of the menu at Sweet Frostings’ four locations (downtown Spokane, Whitworth, NorthTown Mall and in the Spokane Valley Mall). 15 S. Washington St., 242-3845; 10406 N. Division St., 368-9811; 14700 E. Indiana Ave., Spokane Valley, 381-5927 • sweetfrostingsbakeshop.com

MARSELL'S

CELEBRATIONS BAKERY 46

VOLUME 3

COVID hasn’t been easy for small businesses, but for those who were downsizing anyway, it wasn’t such a jarring transition. At least that’s the case for Marcel Kopplin, who moved her commercial bakery into her basement last December, before the pandemic hit. She’d operated a bakery and retail space in Spokane since ’03 with 22 years of experience as an instructor at the Inland Northwest Culinary Academy. If you’re looking for a cupcake

with a healthy dose of filling (raspberry, mocha fudge, vanilla and others), “robed in ganache” and intricately decorated, then you need to call Marsell’s. The lavender cake and cupcake is one of the most popular. There’s no minimum size to the orders, Kopplin says, so long as she can fit it into her schedule. Bonus: The ganache seal around the cupcake will make it last longer than most. marsellscakes.com, 448-2512

SWEET DREAMS BAKERY

Susie Bowen at Sweet Dreams Bakery calls herself “an ingredient snob.” That’s because everything she puts in her cupcakes is “real.” “Real cream cheese. Real butter.

Real vanillas. Real flavor.” Otherwise, her grandmother would come back to haunt her, she says. In addition to her popular German chocolate and berry-flavored cakes and cupcakes, Bowen is also preparing for the fall season with “heavier” flavors, like pumpkin and bananacarrot. Like many other small businesses, Sweet Dreams has also taken a hit during COVID-19 by removing instore seating and readjusting its hours. Thankfully, a loyal customer base has managed to keep Bowen afloat, she says. 3131 N. Division St., Facebook.com: Sweet Dreams Bakery, 747-6900

HAPPY CAKE CO.

One notable change for Happy Cake Co. since the massive event cancellations during COVID-19 is the uptick in cupcake sales, owners Mike and Cassandra Halloran say. Specifically, they say some of their customers have been improvising with socially distanced drive-thru parties where guests are treated to Happy Cake’s cupcakes.

“Our cupcakes stand out among other vendors because each cupcake is filled with buttercream icing and then dipped in a glaze which gives each cupcake a smooth and shiny presentation.” Also, get ready for their pumpkin spice flavors coming this fall. 1312 N. Mullan Rd., Spokane Valley, happycakeco.com, 924-8455

JUST AMERICAN DESSERTS

In business since 1986, Just American Desserts owner Eva Roberts says she’s seen it all: “Desert Storm, ice storm, wind storms, technology crashes, stock crashes, 9/11 and recessions! Now a pandemic!” she says.

Although she’s seen large cancellations during the pandemic, business has stayed somewhat stable with a dramatic increase in individual sales, she says. Just American Desserts specializes in cakes, cupcakes, cheesecakes, cookies and chocolate work. Cupcakes are offered in regular and “mini” sizes with flavors such as chocolate fudge cake, sour cream with fresh lemon filling and almond poppyseed. 213 S. University Rd., Spokane Valley, Facebook.com: Just American Desserts, 927-2253 ◆

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VOLUME 3

47

Dear 2,804 members who’ve ordered from Dick’s Hamburgers during COVID-19, you’re bringing business back, one Whammy at a time.

STCU and The Inlander are teaming up to support local businesses during COVID-19.

Use your STCU rewards credit card and get up to 4x points at restaurants, bars, and restaurant delivery services through October 31.* Apply today at stcu.org/bonus, by visiting the nearest branch, or by calling (800) 858-3750.

Purchases at qualifying stores only. Promotion runs from September 17 through October 31, 2020, and is limited to $2,500 in qualifying purchases, or up to 7,500 bonus points on top of your standard earned points. No limit on the amount of standard earned points allowed. Rewards points typically awarded within three business days after your qualifying transaction posts to your account. Earned points on purchases never expire, with at least one purchase every 24 months. Bonus points expire one year from date awarded. Subject to approval.

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Artist Joyce Wilkens captures vivid colors in her new book.

VISUAL ARTS

A Colorful

F E A ST Local artist Joyce Wilkens discusses her new book Poetry Pie and how she’s maintained community during COVID-19

BY LAUREN GILMORE

S

pokane artist Joyce Wilkens lives by the motto, “If you don’t ask, doors don’t open.”

After running Bloomsday every year for 25 years, each time dressed in the Raggedy Ann costume she made for a Christmas play, Wilkens knew her body needed a break. To celebrate her retirement from the race, she convinced event organizers to let her perform at the tradeshow where she completed a large painting of Raggedy Ann, live and in costume. Afterward, she took the finished piece to the top of Doomsday Hill so the beloved character could cheer on her community even in her absence. ...continued on next page

CULTURE | VISUAL ARTS “A COLORFUL FEAST,” CONTINUED...

You love Corn Pasta, we love you.

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26 INLANDER OCTOBER 15, 2020

Wilkens is a multimodal artist, working in photography, painting, and poetry. Her work focuses on the hinges — those connections we forge with other people, unique objects, natural beauty — and she’s made a practice of pushing doors open for herself. She returned to Spokane in 1985, after living in Walla Walla and Loma Linda, California, and is deeply embedded in local artistic communities.

Her first book of photography, Teacup Art (2011), is a catalog of her fascination with the power of delicate, everyday objects to form connections between strangers. It all started when she attended a woman’s teacup party. Each guest brought a teacup that was important to her, and explained why.

Listening to these stories, Wilkens thought: “I am closer to all of these people.

Now I know something about them, and we’re on the path to becoming friends.”

She knew she wanted to center her second book around an object like the teacup: Something that was beautiful in its own right while also signposting deeper storytelling. She thought of her husband’s walking stick collection. He started collecting them

in 1982 while they were living in Zambia and Zimbabwe.

“If you ask somebody about their walking stick, they’ll tell you their story,” Wilkens says. “They’ll tell you why their back aches, or how they got it from their grandfather.”

Walking Sticks, published in 2013, combines photography of unique walking sticks, some of them carved by Wilkens herself, and the scenic locaJoyce Wilkens tions they can take you.

Her newest work, Poetry Pie, was seven years in the making. Under the guidance and mentorship of the long-standing South Hill group the Poetry Scribes of Spokane, Wilkens started composing poetry inspired by her own paintings and making paintings to accompany poems. She picked the title for its rhythmic structure and the feelings of warmth it evoked.

“I wanted it to be something delicious, inviting you to a table, inviting you to a

book,” Wilkens says.

The cover of the book is a bird’s nest with two different colored eggs inside. “The circle represents the pie; what’s happening inside is poetry,” she explains. The painting corresponds to a poem about two bird mothers. One dies, and the eggs are nurtured by the other.

“It’s the poetry of life,” Wilkens says.

“Things are beautiful, and sometimes they’re not. It’s about finding a positive in the negative.”

That’s certainly what she’s been doing in response to COVID-19. When asked how she is handling the isolation, she admits it’s been challenging, but the pandemic provided her with necessary quiet time to focus on her book and finish the paintings.

Still, she is finding ways to connect.

She recently participated in an event called Art on the Go where artists took paintings to specific locations so people could drive by and view them from a safe distance. In a few weeks, she will also take part in carrying her paintings in front of the windows of senior citizens’ homes.

“For that, I will dress up as Raggedy Ann one more time,” she says. n Joyce Wilkens Poetry Pie Book Signing and Art Exhibition (masks required) • Sun-Mon, Oct. 18-19, 1-6 pm • 3010 S. Southeast Blvd. • joycewilkens.com

CULTURE | DIGEST

Fists of Fury GET YOUR GOOSE The sensationally mischievous Untitled Goose Game was released to much acclaim a year ago, but you can now team up with a friend to wreak utter havoc on an unsuspecting English village. As a pair of geese that can obnoxiously honk, flap their wings and pick up items with their beaks, players are tasked with a to-do list of trouble-causing, like provoking village inhabitants into frustrationinduced breakdowns. Figuring out how to complete each task is challenging, and once you complete the first play-through, a new, harder to-do list is added. The destruction and harassment is truly the cathartic release we need right now. (CHEY SCOTT)

I

BY NATHAN WEINBENDER

hadn’t seen a Bruce Lee movie when, in eighth grade, I bought a blood-red T-shirt emblazoned with an illustration of the martial artist’s face. I was only aware of him through osmosis, but even then I just knew he was cool.

Until last week, I was still a Lee neophyte, having only seen one of his films — 1973’s Enter the Dragon. To fix that, I bought the recent Criterion Collection set Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits, containing crisp restorations of his five major action films.

Lee was born into showbiz, appearing in melodramas and family-friendly features as a child actor. After studying at the University of Washington in the late ’50s, he worked in Hollywood as a fight choreographer and played the masked sidekick Kato on TV’s The Green Hornet.

His action movie career took off in the early ’70s and made him a global superstar, but it was his

THE BUZZ BIN

THIS WEEK’S PLAYLIST Some noteworthy new music hits online and in stores Oct. 16. To wit: GORD DOWNIE, Away Is Mine. The last recordings of the Tragically Hip’s leader, who died in October 2017.

THE STRUTS, Strange Days. Gloriously retro glam-rock, just ask anyone who saw them open for Foo Fighters at the Arena.

TOMMY LEE, Andro. The Motley Crue drummer covers Prince’s “When You Were Mine.”

2020 just keeps getting worse. (DAN NAILEN)

unexpected death at 32 that cemented his mythic status.

Grindhouse studios even began pumping out films starring lookalike actors with deliberately misleading names like Bruce Li, an ignominious subgenre that came to be known as “Brucesploitation.”

Because he’s such an icon, I perhaps unfairly assumed that Lee played a variation on the same smirking persona in every film. But that isn’t the case. In The Big Boss (1971), Lee’s first martial arts film, he’s a selfproclaimed pacifist, and it isn’t until the 80-minute mark that he finally kicks ass. By comparison, he’s a tightly coiled ball of rage in 1972’s Fist of Fury, barely able to hold his composure as he avenges his master’s murder.

The movies themselves mix it up, too: Way of the Dragon (1972), which Lee wrote and directed, introduces broad fish-out-of-water comedy, while his magnum opus Enter the Dragon, released a month after Lee died, is a slick, cool neo-noir. (The fifth film in the box set, 1978’s cobbled-together Game of Death, is best remembered as a crude curio, and for Bruce’s iconic yellow jumpsuit.)

It’s fascinating to watch Lee and his collaborators, themselves inspired by classic wuxia narratives and the films of Shaw Brothers Studios, solidify the framework of the modern action movie: establish a simple conflict, manufacture a fight scene every 25 minutes, deliver an explosive finale. It’s a formula duplicated by so many of Lee’s acolytes, including Jackie Chan, Steven Seagal and Lee’s Way of the Dragon co-star Chuck Norris.

Having binged the Criterion set, I’m most blown away by Lee’s effortless agility and magnetic presence, and the humility that underscored his remarkable confidence. I better understand the legend because now I understand the man. n

WHEN HAIR BANDS STILL HAD HAIR Photographer Mark Weiss was at the epicenter of hard rock and metal music in its ’80s heyday, shooting for magazines like Circus and Hit Parader, and his book The Decade That Rocked: The Photography of Mark “Weissguy” Weiss is a vivid stroll down memory lane for anyone who listened to Van Halen, Joan Jett, Metallica or Ozzy Osbourne during that most decadent era. Among its 378 pages are original interviews with several artists alongside Weiss’ own memories of cracking into the industry after being busted selling bootleg photos outside a KISS concert. (DAN NAILEN)

REASONABLE DOUBT In 1970, Army officer Jeffrey MacDonald claimed a satanic cult killed his wife and young daughters, a shocking event that fed into post-Manson paranoia. But the case was so much more complicated, and MacDonald would be convicted of murder nine years later after professing his innocence.

A Wilderness of Error is a new nonfiction series, based on a book by Oscar-winning documentarian Errol Morris, that digs into the crimes, as well as the bizarre saga of MacDonald’s wildly different relationships with two journalists who wrote about his guilt (or lack thereof). All five episodes are streaming on Hulu, and a companion podcast called Morally Indefensible is also available. (NATHAN WEINBENDER)

THE JOY OF PARANOIA Who killed Red in the storage room? Was it Orange? Was it Pink? Who will you accuse? Who will you defend? Was it you? Among Us is a beautifully simplistic mobile game that has seen a recent surge in popularity. You and nine other players are given tasks to complete aboard a spaceship. One or more players are “Impostors” tasked to sabotage the ship and murder other crewmembers. Think you know who it is? Smash the emergency meeting button, make your case and vote to boot them off the ship. Just remember that the Impostor also gets a say, and it could be your word against theirs. It’s easy to learn, fun and free. (QUINN WELSCH)

OCTOBER 15, 2020 INLANDER 27

dining • shopping • culture Businesses are working hard to serve customers and stay safe: Support them and you support our region’s recovery.

MASSELOW'S STEAKHOUSE SMOKED DIVER SCALLOPS

An Eye to the Future When Masselow's Steakhouse temporarily closed along with the Northern Quest Resort & Casino on March 16, the staff wanted to make the closure count. They sought to implement changes that would not only limit the spread of COVID-19, but also provide an even better foundation for the future.

That meant looking beyond a commitment to personal protective equipment and social distancing protocols. They wondered if the pandemic’s many economic and logistical challenges might also provide a way to emerge stronger and with a renewed sense of purpose.

“We’re having to take lots of steps backwards and reapproach things in a new context with different policies and procedures that weren’t there before,” says Michael Miho, Masselow’s general manager. “But our main concern is for our guests’ comfort. So we’re trying to institute changes that increase the quality of the service, the experience and the ambiance to get to that comfort level faster and then exceed your expectations.”

One way to achieve that is what he describes as “old

school maître d’ details.” That might involve casually recalling where individual guests like to sit, when their birthday is or how they like their steak cooked.

“We’re trying to put in the work to make it more personable, more familiar, to make you feel more special,” Miho adds. “And that doesn’t mean it’s stuffier or that it takes longer. It just means that we’re focusing on what we’re bringing to the table, literally and figuratively.”

This idea of finding opportunity in crisis is one that’s been echoed by many restaurants and retailers across the Inland Northwest. For Miho, it’s also a philosophy that comes “directly from the culture of the [Kalispel] Tribe. Their ethos is to be seven generations ahead, and that’s the cornerstone for everything they do. How are we setting up future generations to be healthy and strong and thrive?”

As the chef at Masselow’s, which is named for the Kalispel leader who guided the tribe a century ago, Tanya Broesder saw potential in aligning the restaurant’s service more closely with its food. Instead of adding more items to the menu, she pared it down to their specialties.

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28 INLANDER OCTOBER 15, 2020

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Guests can now choose between one of two fixed menus, which offer room for variation depending on seasonal ingredients and rotating specials. The three-course currently centers around entrees like char-grilled aged Manhattan steak or wild king salmon. The four-course option features a double-cut pork chop, smoked scallops or grilled filet mignon. Each menu also has carefully selected wine-pairing recommendations.

By curating the menu and moving to a reservation-only model, Broesder says that the staff on both sides of the kitchen door are able to concentrate more on the particulars that take a meal from excellent to superb. For instance, dedicated servers will now prepare some menu items tableside for each guest.

“The service and the food have to go hand in hand, so you’re getting a full experience from the moment you make your reservation to the moment you leave with our poundcake and our house-made apple huckleberry butter as your take-home treat.”

That kind of attention to every aspect of the experience is what guests expect from Masselow’s, as well as from other upscale local steakhouses, such as Churchill’s, SpenCHEF TANYA BROESDER cer’s and Clinkerdagger.

“Getting the call to come back to work was exciting enough,” says Broesder, “but then to be able to call back five of my team members and to explain to them the new concept behind what we’re doing — you could feel the energy in their voice.

“We’ve only been open to the public for a few weeks,” she adds, “and we’ve already had really good feedback from our guests. It’s a great feeling to watch my team execute and bring things to life that we’ve developed together.” ◆ Masselow’s Steakhouse is located at the Northern Quest Resort & Casino (100 N. Hayford Rd., Airway Heights). To view the current menu options and other information, visit northernquest.com. For reservations, call 481-6020.

THE MASON JAR AMERICAN • CHENEY We are a community gathering spot in a historic building offering delicious coffee, pastries and meals for both the college and the greater community. We have our online ordering platform, curbside pickup right out front and we take Meals on Wheels vouchers.

101 F St., 359-8052, themasonjar101.com

THE PONDEROSA BAR & GRILL

PARK LODGE GOZO BRICK OVEN PIZZA MEDITERREAN • DOWNTOWN Gozo is one of the three inhabited islands that comprise the Republic of Malta. It also translates to “joy” in Portuguese. Widely traveled and broadly cultured, the close-knit owner group of family and friends includes two native Europeans. We all share deep appreciation for joyous gatherings centered on great food. Inspired by our culinary experiences, we have created an original recipe menu of simple, high-quality, and deeply satisfying foods of place, which we prepare in our wood-fired brick oven. We cordially invite you to join our family’s table. 816 W. Sprague Ave., 413-1856, facebook.com/ gozobistro

PARK LODGE NEW AMERICAN • KENDALL YARDS Park Lodge is famous for award-winning, chef-driven dinners and the unique applewood-fired grill, along with the use of local and seasonal ingredients. Add the comfortable, inviting setting and well-trained, friendly staff and guests see why Park Lodge has earned its reputation for a total dining experience. Chef Philip Stanton has always emphasized locally inspired comfort food, and a few of the items diners are treated with include lamb ragout, king salmon, duck breast, filet mignon and roast chicken — with offerings changed frequently. The enlarged, inviting patio above the Spokane River and adjacent to the Centennial Trail is a special place in most seasons. 411 N. Nettleton St.,

340-9347, parklodgerestaurant.com

POOLE'S PUBLIC HOUSE AMERICAN • TWO LOCATIONS We hope it’ll feel like home when you meet friends and family to eat, drink and catch your favorite sporting event! We offer a full menu, (not just typical pub food), 18 ice-cold beers on tap (15 at the south pub), over 30 flavors of bottled beers, a hand-picked selection of wines and a great variety of spirits!

We are now serving breakfast seven days a week starting at 8 am. We have removed tables and chairs to ensure the remaining tables are 6 feet apart. We offer contactfree curbside service and also delivery via GrubHub. 12310 N. Ruby St., 413-1834 and 5620 S. Regal St., Suite #1, 368-9760, poolespublichouse.com

HANG 10 HAWAIIAN BBQ BARBECUE/TERIYAKI SOUTH SPOKANE Although the islands of Hawaii are thousands of miles away, Hang 10 Hawaiian BBQ is proud to be able to provide a little aloha spirit to Spokane. With every bite of our traditional Hawaiian dishes, you will feel the islands’ warm sunshine, hear the rhythm of Hawaiian music and feel the joy of catching a wave. At Hang 10, we are all about the ohana and we have larger party platters that are perfect for any type of event. Stop in today, Hang 10 and enjoy a little taste of aloha. 909 S. Grand Blvd., 747-7737, hang10bbq.com

AMERICAN • SPOKANE VALLEY We are open seven days a week for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We just recently opened in the Ponderosa neighborhood.

We have a great patio with lots of seating, a full bar and are kid-friendly. We have an enthusiastic staff that is eager to serve you.

We have made sure everything is sanitized, all tables are 6 feet apart and masks are required until seated. 11205 E. Dishman-Mica Rd., 934-1979, facebook.com/PonderosaBar-and-Grill

UMI KITCHEN AND SUSHI BAR ASIAN • KENDALL YARDS Enjoy the ambiance in the heart of Kendall Yards, or order takeout to enjoy at home. Our creative sushi is made with the freshest ingredients and paired with delicious, traditional sauces. Our kitchen also serves hot dishes that are always a crowd favorite. 1309 W. Summit Pkwy., 368-9372, umispokane.com

HUCKLEBERRY'S NATURAL MARKET BISTRO • SOUTH HILL We were the first natural supermarket here in the Inland Northwest, starting in 1996. Just a few reasons to stop into Huck’s today might be our certified non-GMO meat, our local eggs and dairy, imported hand-wrapped cheese table, 800+ craft and domestic beer, organic juice bar, extensive olive bar, locally curated bakery, scratch-made daily bistro, hand-wrapped, artisan-made sushi every single day, local and regional produce department, specialty floral department and, seriously, so much more! We offer senior and at-risk shopping hours, curbside pick up daily, call-in, to-go bistro and juice bar orders and every single cart is sanitized before a new customer uses it. 926 S. Monroe St., 6241349, huckleberrysnaturalmarket.com

ABOUT Back to business • These weekly pages are part of a local marketing effort in support of the hospitality

sector brought to you by leading institutions and businesses to help promote the Spokane County economy, supported in part by Cares Act funding. With the goal of balancing commerce and public safety, you can follow along here in the Inlander, and via the links below, as local restaurants, shops and more share their stories and invite your support.

Fresh sheet deals • specials • updates BRICK WEST BREWING COMPANY SPOKANE [ DOWNTOWN ] Every Wednesday is “Wing Wednesday” at Brick West. Come down to our patio, take a picture with our wings on the patio and enter to win a gift card!

1318 West 1st Avenue

HIEROPHANT MEADERY SPOKANE [ NORTH ] Butterbee, a sparkling mead with Marshmallow root and Butterscotch distillate, & Spiced Apple, a sparkling apple mead with botanicals.

16602 North Day Mount Spokane Road

MOUNTAIN LAKES BREWING CO. SPOKANE [ DOWNTOWN ] 50% off growler fills & $2 off pints when you purchase our pre-paid Pint & Growler Punch Cards in the taproom or online!

201 West Riverside Avenue

THE WANDERING TABLE SPOKANE [ DOWNTOWN ] Happy Hour 3-5 daily with $5 taste and bites and $7 drinks 1242 West Summit Parkway

THE FLYING GOAT SPOKANE [ NORTH ] Monday is $12 Pizza at the Goat! Your favorite pizza, just $12 every Monday from 11 am to 10 pm.

3318 W Northwest Blvd

BIG BARN BREWING CO. SPOKANE [ NORTH ] Every Wednesday is discount Growler Fill day and every Thursday is $1 off pints.

We often have local food trucks on Friday-Sunday.

16004 N. Applewood Lane

FRESH SHEET CONTINUES ON THE NEXT PAGE

more to come • Through the end of the year, watch

the Inlander for special Back To Business guides, along with special sections, sharing more recovery stories and community business features.

Safe business practice resources KindnessNotCovid.org • Financial resources for businesses InlandBizStrong.org

OCTOBER 15, 2020 INLANDER 29

Fresh sheet deals • specials • updates Platter Friday’s at 5:30. Loaded Bloody Marys all day Sunday.

405 1st Street

LAGUNA CAFE SPOKANE [ SOUTH ] $10 off any bottle of wine to go.

2013 East 29 TH Ave

VAQUEROS MEXICAN RESTAURANT SPOKANE VALLEY Margarita Mondays: $2 of any margarita and small margaritas for $4.95. Taco Tuesday: $2 off streettaco entrees and $2.50 tacos (ground beef or chicken).

16208 E Indiana Ave

THREE PEAKS KITCHEN + BAR CRAVE EATS. DRINKS. NIGHTLIFE SPOKANE [ DOWNTOWN ] We have outside seating and a great happy hour with old school prices.

401 West Riverside Avenue

GREEN CITY SALOON SPOKANE VALLEY $3 any tap during NFL Monday Night Football, featuring New York Italian Sausages, $13 Steak & Bake Thursday 4-8 pm. Taco & Tequila Tuesday specials all day.

18221 East Appleway Avenue

THREE PEAKS KITCHEN + BAR AIRWAY HEIGHTS Our slow-roasted Prime Rib Dinner Special is available Wednesdays 4-9 pm. Includes your choice of soup or salad, baked potato, dessert & a glass of wine.

West State Route 2

patio will be available, weather permitting.

122 S Monroe

UNCLE RUSTY'S DINER SPOKANE [ DOWNTOWN ] Monday-Friday from 6 am-8 am short stacks of pancakes are just $4. Add a cup of coffee to any meal for $1.

1412 W. 2nd Ave

NOODLE EXPRESS SPOKANE [ NORTH ] New item: Fresh green beans that have been sautéed in a soy glaze with chopped garlic and chili paste. Only $3.99 for a limited time.

7514 North Division Street

PETE'S PIZZA SPOKANE [ NORTH ] Any calzone, full or lite size $9.95 every Tuesday!

821 E. Sharp Ave

ANDY'S BAR & GRILL

MEETING HOUSE

SPOKANE [ DOWNTOWN ] Happy Hour Daily from 3 pm to 6 pm & all day Sunday 1401 West 1st Avenue

SPOKANE [ SOUTH ] Our new soup and grilled sandwich lunch menu has gone live and we’ve extended hours to 3 pm!

1801 East 11th Avenue

WHISTLE PUNK BREWING SPOKANE [ DOWNTOWN ] We are open at 50% capacity for indoor seating and our

WILD BILLS LONGBAR CHENEY Taco Tuesdays at 4. Cowboy BBQ

OLD EUROPEAN SPOKANE [ NORTH ] We are serving our famous scratch-made pumpkin donuts and bakery-fresh pumpkin french toast.

7640 North Division Street

MAXWELL HOUSE WEST CENTRAL Sonnenbergs Pork Chops with mashed potatoes, gravy and garlic bread every Tuesday for $11.

Wednesday is steak night, Top sirloin and backed potato $12 1425 North Ash Street

CHOO CHOO TORTAS SPOKANE VALLEY Monday: Supreme burrito is $7.95.

Tuesday: Taco meal is $6.95.

Wednesday: Huarache is $8.95.

Thursday: 2 enchiladas for $7.95.

Friday: a la diabla is $11.95.

10621 East Sprague Avenue

NO NAANSENSE SPOKANE [ DOWNTOWN ] Meat or veggie koftas: Six pieces, ground beef or fresh veggie mix marinated with our spice blend and fried, served with garlic dill aioli and naan.

4750 North Division Street

HAPPINESS CHINESE RESTAURANT SPOKANE [ EAST ] If you spend $50-$79, get a free order of spring rolls. Spend $80$100, and get a free small appetizer platter. Spend $100-$150 and get a free large appetizer platter.

3420 East Sprague Avenue

PHO CITY SPOKANE [ DOWNTOWN ] $1 off Pho all day every Friday.

112 North Howard Street

PF CHANGS SPOKANE [ DOWNTOWN ] Happy Hour is 3 to 6 Monday through Friday. Preferred members get separate deals through their emails or social media.

801 West Main Avenue

TO-GO MIXOLOGIST

By offering cocktails to go, Twigs Bistro and Martini Bar is just one of many area restaurants that’s been helping make COVID-19 restrictions a little more relaxed. Although Twigs’ central River Park Square location has yet to reopen, its Wandermere, South Hill and Spokane Valley locations have been featuring a limited takeout menu of their signature martinis since the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board began allowing it in May. To-go cocktails must be sold with food, by Washington state regulation.

Their ever-popular Lemon Drop, for example, features vodka, triple sec and a muddled citrus mix. The Huckleberry Lemon Drop and the Blood Orange are similar variations on that recipe.

“We make our Lemon Drop mix in-house, and the Huckleberry Lemon Drop has fresh huckleberries. It’s made with real ingredients. None of it is syrup or artificial,” says Julianne Colbert, a front-of-house support staff member at Twigs in Wandermere.

The pre-mixed cocktails come in Mason jars that are sized to hold two or four servings. All customers have to do is pour their contents over

TWIGS' LEMON DROP ice and strain them into their glasses of choice. It’s almost like having your own personal bartender.

“A lot of people really appreciate us for our martinis, so it’s given us a nice way to stay in touch and interact with them during the lockdown.” ◆ Twigs Wandermere: 401 E. Farwell Rd., 4658794; Twigs South Hill: 4320 S. Regal St., 4438000; Twigs Spokane Valley: 14728 E. Indiana Ave., 290-5636; They can all be found online at twigsbistro.com. Be sure to reach out to your favorite restaurant to see if they’re also offering cocktails to go.

MORE FRESH SHEET follow up-to-date info at btb.inlander.com 30 INLANDER OCTOBER 15, 2020

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OPENING

Nood Mood Spokane’s Garland District welcomes new seasonal pho and ramen shop Little Noodle

BY CHEY SCOTT

D

on’t wait too long to check out one of the Garland District’s newest food spots — Little Noodle could be here and gone in just six months.

The seasonal Asian-inspired noodle shop with a menu centered around scratch-made pho and ramen is currently set to operate only through early spring 2021, as it’s located in a building that’s home to Honey Pig BBQ the rest of the year.

A familiar name in the neighborhood is heading up the project: chef Kadra Evans, formerly of North Hill on Garland, which has not reopened since closing at the pandemic’s onset in mid-March. Evans is teaming up with her brother-in-law Ryan Stretch as partners in the restaurant.

“We’ve both been out of work since March,” Stretch says. “That’s why we’re doing our own thing.”

Although Stretch doesn’t have professional culinary experience, the duo has long enjoyed cooking together for their family.

“I always team up with him and cook when I’m at home,” Evans says. “Every time I’m at my sister’s he’s doing barbecue and always enjoys cooking.”

At North Hill, Evans established a local following for her time-honed recipe for pho, a brothy Vietnamese noodle soup, which she served weekly for a “Pho Friday” special.

The duo are subleasing the Honey Pig space on the corner of Garland and Wall from business owner Tony Ferrante during the barbecue joint’s six months off during fall and winter.

“What I wanted to cook was pretty perfect for winter, so we started working on the details for that and we did it,” Evans says. “And we’ll see from there if we’re going to do a food truck or a different location.”

Little Noodle’s soft opening is slated for Oct. 15, with a grand opening on Oct. 20. The restaurant plans to operate five days a week, closed for service on Monday and Tuesday in order to prepare the 48-hour broth for its soups. ...continued on next page

Pork buns, crab dumplings and beef wontons are unfailingly fresh. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

OCTOBER 15, 2020 INLANDER 31

FOOD | OPENING

Volume 1, 2 & 3: restaurant Guides Ryan Stretch and Kadra Evans are partners in the Garland District’s new Little Noodle.

1 VOLUME PRESENTED BY

VOLUME 3 PRESENTED BY

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NT RESTAURGA uide

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LITY TING HOSPITA NITY A GUIDE SUPPOR OUR COMMU BUSINESSES IN

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TIONS S PARTNER ORGANIZA BACK TO BUSINES

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AN INLANDER COMMUNITY CENTER AT THESE AREA GROCERY STORES

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“NOOD MOOD,” CONTINUED...

Besides pho and ramen ($11/each base price) with choice of proteins ($2-$3 each additional), including tri-tip, smoked pork or pork belly, smoked tofu and shrimp, Little Noodle’s menu also offers several small bites: spring rolls ($6.50), edamame ($5-$5.50) and spam or tofu musubi ($4).

“The biggest thing is that we use prime meats” in our dishes, Evans explains, which are of a higher quality than the meat often served in more traditional noodle kitchens.

“It’s all fresh ingredients,” she continues.

“We’re going to smoke some meats, but we have no fryers and we’re really just working off of induction burners and smokers. So it’s a challenge, but it’s a good way to keep things really fresh.”

Non-noodle dishes on the Asian-fusion menu include steamed sake clams in lemongrass basil butter ($12.50), shrimp or mushroom soup dumplings with black vinegar broth ($12), a banh mi sandwich ($11), rice bowls ($9), bao buns ($12.50; served deconstructed, in a buildyour-own style) and a pho-ritto ($12.50), a flour tortilla stuffed with classic pho ingredients.

Perhaps one of the most exciting menu inclusions for many local diners, however, is “Dim Sum Day” on Wednesdays, from 2 pm to close. For those who prowl some of the region’s food-focused social media forums, the Cantonese tradition of serving a variety of small-portioned dishes is one of the most asked-for cuisines in the Inland Northwest. Little Noodle’s dim sum options, served directly to customers from a cart displaying the available dishes, may vary from week to week.

Weeks before the restaurant’s debut, Evans traveled to Seattle to sample some of the city’s

w o N s d n a t S n O Pick up your FREE Annual Manual, on stands now!

32 INLANDER OCTOBER 15, 2020

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

most popular dim sum restaurants to get her “dim sum game going.”

Dine-in seating at Little Noodle will be limited under current guidelines, and as such Evans and Stretch expect most orders to be placed for takeout.

The restaurant won’t have a full bar, either, but local bartender and bitters expert Shelayna Skidmore is collaborating with its owners to craft a few sake cocktails to round out Little Noodle’s wine, beer and sake selection.

Evans and Stretch both live in the Garland area and are excited to share a new dining choice with the community, even if it may be a seasonal venture for the foreseeable future.

“Living in the neighborhood, I always wanted more options” for food, Evans says. “It’s not just a place for people to come visit, but people in the neighborhood also have options.”

“We’re really excited,” Stretch adds. “Kadra is an incredible chef, and I am 100 percent on board. I really want this to work, and I think it will.”

That said, both continue to stress that Little Noodle’s first go-around is only for six months as they test the concept in its temporary location, and hopefully succeeding to justify more permanent plans.

“You don’t have long to try us out, and the more [business] we get, the sooner the better,” Evans says. n cheys@inlander.com Little Noodle • 713 W. Garland Ave. • Open Tue-Wed 11 am-9 pm, Thu-Sat 11 am-10 pm • littlenoodlespokane.com

ANNUAL REPORT ARTS RECREATION FOOD & DRINK EDUCATION SHOPPING GREEN ZONE

FOOD | OPENING

A Source of Comfort Izzy’s Comfort Kitchen in Coeur d’Alene opens as a welcome respite for diners and a special tribute for its owners

BY CARRIE SCOZZARO

Y

ou get the sense that Reannan Keene and her husband Jason are looking to nourish more than bellies at Izzy’s Comfort Kitchen, a new Coeur d’Alene eatery with a Southern-inspired menu and homey décor. While working and raising their three children, “front porch” dates were important, says Reannan Keene, and it’s that sense of informal hospitality they hoped to create with Izzy’s.

“I really wanted people to feel like [they’re] coming to our home for a nice meal and great beer/wine and leave feeling better than when they arrived,” says Keene, who, like her husband, has spent decades in the restaurant industry.

Reannan spent 20 years in the fast-casual food service industry, working her way up from a server to upper management, where she found her niche in human resources, sales and marketing. Jason has nearly that many years in the biz, developing expertise in management, training and leadership.

The couple poured their experience into Izzy’s, which was also partly born out of a parent’s worst sense of loss.

Nine years ago, the couple lost their daughter — they would have called her Isabella — during delivery, says Keene. After Izzy’s death, Keene clung to cooking as a means of therapy and also became a certified lifestyle design coach during that time.

“Now, we get to come to Izzy’s every day and honor her space in our family,” she says.

Families are welcome at Izzy’s, which has been home to a series of restaurants, including Kelly’s Irish Pub and most recently Ten/6, which is moving its pairing of Alice in Wonderland décor and New Orleans-style food to a yet-toopen location.

Izzy’s is refreshingly open, yet welcoming with walls painted a calming shade of deep blue and contrasting but-

Southern-tinged flavors rule at Izzy’s Comfort Kitchen, run by Reannan and Jason Keene. REBECCA WALKER PHOTOS

tercup yellow. Rustic lighting, mirrored window frames, white accents and other décor give it a farmhouse-meetsshabby-chic feel.

The menu features comfort food like a peach bourbon barbecue burger ($15) and “Mama’s” pot roast ($17) with gravy Keene makes for her own family. It brings her great joy to share family favorites with diners.

Other recipes are inspired by Keene’s upbringing in North Carolina and Virginia, including the cornbread ($6), blackened shrimp and polenta grits ($19) and classic fried chicken ($22).

’, THE INLANDER S GUIDE TO WINTER SPORTS LOOK FOR IT MONTHLY OCTOBER THROUGH FEBRUARY

“I take great time and care through the sweet tea brine, the seasoning and the execution to get it just like when I was a young girl,” says Keene, who learned to cook at an early age and eventually discovered that she couldn’t tolerate wheat nor dairy. Thus, many of the recipes at Izzy’s are gluten-free or can be made so upon request. n Izzy’s Comfort Kitchen • 726 Fourth Ave., Coeur d’Alene • Open Sun-Thu 11 am-8 pm, Fri-Sat 11 am-9 pm • facebook.com/izzyscomfortkitchen • 208-930-0930

FOR ADVERTISING INFORMATION, CONTACT: ADVERTISING@INLANDER.COM, 325.0634 EXT. 215 OCTOBER 15, 2020 INLANDER 33

Gonzaga professor/filmmaker Matt McCormick’s The Deepest Hole was accepted to Sundance this year and is now streaming.

Stranger Than Fiction In the Sundance-approved The Deepest Hole, Spokane filmmaker Matt McCormick explores a Russian conspiracy theory

BY NATHAN WEINBENDER

M

att McCormick has been on a Cold War kick “I’m not necessarily a professional filmmaker anylately. The Spokane filmmaker and Gonzaga more, but it’s still a wonderful honor,” he says. “I went to University professor’s last work was called Buzz Sundance feeling like I already won.”

One Four, a biographical short about a 1964 incident that Now The Deepest Hole is available as part of a package involved his Air Force pilot grandfather, a freak thunderof the best shorts from this year’s Sundance, which you storm and a cache of nuclear bombs. can rent digitally through the Magic Lantern’s website.

His latest film, The Deepest Hole, It’s a film that McCormick started continues his fascination with the working on about five years ago while REOPENING backroads and B-plots of significant Last week, Gov. Jay Inslee announced that he was doing research that would historical eras, this time detailing a result in Buzz One Four. restrictions on movie theaters were going bizarre incident from roughly the “I went down some deep Cold to be loosened, allowing the state’s indoor same era as his earlier film. The Deepest theaters to reopen at 25 percent capacities War rabbit holes,” McCormick says.

Hole premiered earlier this year at the for the first time since March. 14 AMC loca- “I saw an archival photo of the Kola Sundance Film Festival, in what would tions will open again on Friday, including Superdeep Borehole, and I was like, turn out to be one of the final major Spokane’s River Park Square location, and ‘Oh, there’s a film.’” film events before lockdown.

So what is the Kola Superdeep the downtown arthouse the Magic Lantern It wasn’t McCormick’s first time Borehole? It was the byproduct of a Theater is currently planning its eventual at the Park City festival, but it had lesser-known Cold War race between reopening. This news comes on the heels been years since his last visit. Any the U.S. and the Soviet Union. One of Regal Cinemas announcing that it time you’re programmed into Sunthat involved both countries trying to would be temporarily shuttering all of its dance, he says, it’s a pretty typical and locations nationwide, which means its pre- dig to the center of the Earth before hectic routine: You’re meeting people, viously operational Coeur d’Alene theater the other. The Russians ended up doing audience Q&As, running from has shut down and its NorthTown Mall and outpacing the Americans, drilling a one location to another, and seeing 40,000-foot hole near the Russia-NorValley Mall locations will remain closed. lots of movies in between. For a lot of We’ll have more coverage in future issues way border. The story goes that, upon novice directors, getting accepted into of the Inlander. (NATHAN WEINBENDER) reaching their ultimate depth, the drillSundance is the first step toward a ing team dropped a microphone down fruitful career. But for McCormick, who has made plenty into the inky abyss, and what emerged was a cacophony of festival-approved documentaries and music videos, it’s that sounded an awful lot like souls being tortured in the mostly an excuse to showcase your work at one of the underworld. Someone purporting to be a scientist on this most important film festivals in the world. top-secret crew then leaked that recording, which made

34 INLANDER OCTOBER 15, 2020

its rounds on the earliest incarnations of internet message boards and launched countless urban myths.

But, as you might expect, not all was as it seemed.

“There are these two separate stories that existed in parallel universes — the very scientific story of this Cold War race to dig the deepest hole and all the kind of technical and scientific stuff that went with that,” McCormick says. “And then this other storyline of, you know, just bullshit.”

You might think the story ends there, but there are more twists and turns, and each one — from the actual identity of that whistleblowing Russian scientist, to the actual source of the horrific noises, to the recording’s popularity amongst 1990s televangelists — is weirder than the one before. McCormick unpacks the whole thing in less than 15 minutes, using a mixed-media style that incorporates archival footage, animation and impressionistic illustrations.

The Deepest Hole may be firmly rooted in a bygone era, but its central conflict — the war between unwavering faith and scientific truth — remains timely.

“We have these histories of conflict, of ideological arguments that go on for generations,” McCormick says.

“You can see how the different sides of these different arguments positioned themselves. That’s what I found perhaps the most interesting. … Capitalism versus communism resulted in all these goofy scientific experiments, like seeing who could dig the deepest hole, and then the whole science versus religion [debate] led to urban myths and fake news.”

Although The Deepest Hole hasn’t played on any big screens since its Sundance debut, it’s now readily accessible as part of a six-film package that spans the globe from Malaysia to Canada to Morocco. Not only do you not have to travel to Sundance to see it, you don’t even have to leave your living room.

“You can live out in the middle of nowhere in a town that doesn’t have any kind of theater and access this as long as you’ve got an internet connection,” McCormick says. “In that sense, that is a perk.” n Sundance Film Festival Shorts Tour 2020, which includes The Deepest Hole, is available to rent for $10 at magiclanternonmain.com.

keep washing your hands. (it's icky not to!)

OCTOBER 15, 2020 INLANDER 35

Ryan Tucker (left) and a spartan crew deliver a live streaming show from Neato Burrito. YOUNG KWAK PHOTOS

THE BEAT GOES ON New streaming concert series from Baby Bar and Lucky You Lounge bring live music to your living room

BY NATHAN WEINBENDER

I

t was the first time since March that there had been any live music on the stage at Lucky You Lounge, and pretty much everyone in the room was crying.

“It was very emotional,” owner Karli Ingersoll recalls.

“It was very much this feeling of ‘we missed this community.’ … Getting people on stage together, even if no one else is in the room — it’s really life-giving.”

The occasion: The first in an ongoing series of live shows that are being recorded under social distancing

36 INLANDER OCTOBER 15, 2020

restrictions at the Browne’s Addition venue, and then uploaded online as a ticketed virtual event. Lucky You is the latest in a string of local businesses and arts organizations that have been hosting these sorts of virtual events as a safe way of providing live music in lieu of in-person events.

With financial support from Kendall Yards developer Jim Franks, Karli and Caleb Ingersoll set up a makeshift studio in their venue, borrowing cameras from their

buddy Allen Stone (who has been live-streaming himself throughout the pandemic) and bringing in an array of local artists to do their thing. The Lucky You series has already featured performances by folk rockers Trego and bluegrass singer-songwriter Jenny Anne Mannan, and the venue also hosted the virtual ceremony for the recent Spokane Arts Awards.

“Once we did the Spokane Arts Awards, it was like, ‘Oh, this actually isn’t so bad,’” Ingersoll says. “Now [the

setup] is there, and it’s actually really easy and streamlined, so the time and investment in learning how to do it right will pay off.”

Also getting into the streaming concerts game is downtown nightspot Neato Burrito, which has, along with its adjacent watering hole Baby Bar, long been a go-to spot for late-night rock shows. But the place has been empty since March lockdowns went into effect, so local musician and Neato regular Norman Robbins decided it was the ideal place to host some virtual concerts.

The Neato series started up just a couple weeks ago and has thus far broadcast shows by longtime rock bands Pit and Dead Serious Lovers, and a musical variety show from Lilac City Live host Ryan Dean Tucker. Robbins says that Neato/Baby Bar owners Patty Tully and Tim Lannigan jumped at the chance to get music back in their space and have been cooperative through the entire process.

“They just immediately were thrilled about the idea,” Robbins says. “It’s been really nice having mutual agreement every step of the way.”

True to the spirit of your typical Neato show, the live stream series is a decidedly DIY operation. Robbins and his friend Luis Mota serve as the crew, setting up their equipment and cameras and then stepping out of the artists’ way. Robbins says the process has required some improvisation: He mentions jury-rigging an iPad into a secondary camera, held up by a MacGyvered tripod consisting of a butter knife and a magnetic clip.

“We’re trying to keep the spirit of what Neato Burrito and Baby Bar was when we could be downtown,” he explains. “It’s the kind of place where you stumble in and sometimes there happens to be a good show going on.”

Although they ran into a few technical bugs at the outset, they’ve since found their groove. Right now, all of the ticket sales for the virtual shows go straight to the performers, and Robbins says they’ve booked 10 or so artists into November, including his own band BaLonely and Tully and Lannigan’s band Fun Ladies.

While the Baby Bar shows are broadcast live, the Lucky You concerts are prerecorded, filmed and edited in real time like you might see in a TV studio. Both venues are broadcasting their events through a service called Veeps, an inclusive platform that not only allows artists to host their virtual shows but to sell tickets. It’s far more streamlined than simply broadcasting through Facebook or Instagram, which has begun blocking profiles that aim to “create a music listening experience.”

Mastering the art of the virtual concert is actually a good skill to learn now, because there’s always the possibility that virtual concerts could remain a part of artists’ lives long after the pandemic has ended. Will audiences become attuned to the experience of staying at home and watching a live-streamed show?

“There will still be people going out to shows and experiencing bands. But then on top of that, you’re gonna have these venues that are streaming the shows and selling streaming tickets to people who just don’t like going out,” Robbins predicts.

“It would be cool if it became an extra income stream, potentially, for bands,” Ingersoll says of the live stream trend. “And just something for the community, like people who have kids and can’t get a sitter.”

But while the music scene is suffering from lockdown restrictions, both Robbins and Ingersoll hope that these virtual shows boost morale until venues can be packed again.

“Musicians are really struggling right now. It’s a really demoralizing time,” Ingersoll says. “I worry that if there’s not stuff like this until we can do it live again, people are just going to give up.

Musicians already have an easy time getting beat down emotionally, when they don’t have that thing to connect to their art.”

“This shutdown is turning the internet into such a negative place,” Robbins says. “These live streaming shows are going to bring a little more positivity into anyone’s life that’s at home and having a hard time right now, and hopefully get people inspired.” n For a full schedule of upcoming live streams, see babybarneatoburrito.veeps.com and luckyyoulounge.veeps.com.

What can you give this week?

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED Mentors Needed - SPARK CENTRAL Spark Central is looking for volunteers to work with West Central students, grades third through sixth, for its Level Up mentoring program. As a mentor, you will work with a consistent group of two to three students two days a week to offer homework support, as well as assisting with club activities in robotics, art, writing and coding.

It’s important to note you don’t need to be an expert in school subjects to be a mentor in this program. Tuesday and Thursday 2:30-5 pm; October to mid-December.

Sign up online. spark-central.org/volunteers

Food Packers Needed - SPOKANE VALLEY PARTNERS FOOD BANK Spokane Valley Partners is looking for some robust volunteers to pack food for its mobile outreach service. The commitment is two hours a week, for as many weeks as you are able at Meadowood Technology Campus in Liberty Lake. Shifts are Monday through Friday from 10-noon, and noon-2 pm or 3 pm. Apply online, call 927-1153 or email admin@svpart.org to volunteer. svpart.org/volunteer

EVENTS & BENEFITS Camp Reed Virtual Auction - YMCA CAMP REED Each year, Camp Reed’s auction provides funds to create scholarships to ensure that any child who wants to attend camp, has the opportunity to do so. It also provides funding for improvements to camp cabins and facilities. This year, the auction has gone virtual. Shop the auction website online to support camp and score some great items and experiences. ymcainw.org/ymca-camp-reed-auction-save-the-date

ITEMS NEEDED Community-Minded Enterprises RECOVERY CAFÉ PLAY & LEARN

Each week Community-Minded Enterprises gives out early learning activity kits to children 0-5 and their families who are currently overcoming addiction. They need Amazon gift cards for any amount $5 and up to purchase books for their Play and Learn program. By donating gift cards for books, you will play a part in instilling a love and joy of reading in our youngest and most vulnerable citizens of Spokane. Email gift cards to giftcard@community-minded.org or mail them to Community-Minded Enterprises, attention: Victoria Rogozina, 2001 N. Division St., Ste. 130, Spokane, WA 99223.

The House of Charity The House of Charity’s Resource Room is currently running low on a handful of items and needs the community’s help. You can drop off any of the items below at 32 W. Pacific Ave. Ring the doorbell, let the staff know you have donations and they will unload them for you. | Socks • New and used clothing • Disposable razors Travel-size hygiene products like shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste and toothbrushes

To submit a volunteer opportunity, fundraiser or wish list items, email give@inlander.com

Inlander.com/giveGUIDE2020

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OCTOBER 15, 2020 INLANDER 37

BENEFIT SIT, STAY, SAVE

Even though it takes place outdoors, the annual dog walk fundraiser benefiting the Spokane Humane Society had to make the virtual transition this year, too, to keep all participating pet owners and animal lovers safe and sound. Instead, the 17th Parade of Paws is pressing “pause” this Saturday to host a daylong fundraising push, encouraging supporters and their friends and families to instead stay home and celebrate with the pups, kitties and other animal companions in their lives.

Participants are still encouraged to form a team and set a fundraising goal. As you collect donations to support the Humane Society’s mission, mix up a special cocktail, recipe provided, and make some homemade dog or cat treats, recipes also provided. For each $100 your team raises, you’ll be entered into a drawing to win some awesome prizes.

— CHEY SCOTT 17th Annual Parade of... Pause • Sat, Oct. 17, all day • Online; details at spokanehumanesociety.org

38 INLANDER OCTOBER 15, 2020

COMEDY DARE TO LAUGH

VISUAL ARTS YEAR OF THE TRICKSTER

Phillip Kopczynski with Greg Beachler • Fri, Oct. 16; dinner at 7 pm, comedy at 8:30 pm • $10 • Honey Eatery and Social Club • 317 E. Sherman Ave., Coeur d’Alene • facebook.com/phillipkopcomedy

Eleven Gatherings Plateau Salish Art • Oct. 18-23 • Free • YES IS A FEELING • 159 S. Lincoln St. • spokanearts.org

There’s only so much a stand-up comedy fan can get out of a Zoom show or from watching the same Netflix special over and over again. The audience-performer interaction is vital to the form, and it’s been missed during these pandemic-ridden days. On the Idaho side of the state line, you can find that experience again this weekend at Honey Eatery and Social Club, as one of the Inland Northwest’s best comics takes the stage. Phillip Kopczynski has been performing through the region and beyond for years, taking second place in the Seattle International Comedy Competition in 2018. Pop in for a bite beforehand and make a night of it.

— DAN NAILEN

Every day is a good day to remember that the city of Spokane was built on tribal land and that original peoples are still here and making art. Local artist and tribal elder Diane Covington is curating a window exhibition showcasing work completed by Plateau Salish artists this year, the year of the trickster. The pieces are showcased in the window of the YES IS A FEELING gallery, so you can drive, walk, or wheel by at your own pace (and as many times as you want). Covington works across mediums, creating larger than life depictions of subjects she loves, and teaches Spokane tribal culture and language. This show is hosted by Spokane Arts as part of October Arts Month.

— LAUREN GILMORE

GET LISTED!

Submit events online at Inlander.com/getlisted or email relevant details to getlisted@inlander.com. We need the details one week prior to our publication date.

FESTIVAL DIGITAL PRIDE

This month, two Supreme Court justices issued a broadside threatening Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 decision declaring same-sex couples had a constitutional right to marry. This news comes in the midst of what’s already been a heartbreaking few years for LGBTQIA+ communities. Now, when we can’t come together, we need each other more than ever. The good news is Spokane Pride isn’t canceled; it’s just changing shape. Register now for Pride Stride ($40, through Oct. 31), a nationwide virtual event to celebrate Coming Out Day, and pick either a 5K or 10K. As you might have guessed, it’s your runway and you can jog, walk, dance, or strut your way down it. Then, on Oct. 17, submit photos or short videos of your flags, signs and fierce selves for a live, socially distanced Pride march. Close out the weekend by decorating your car at a drive-through fundraiser on Sunday, Oct. 18.

— LAUREN GILMORE Spokane Pride Month 2020 • Oct. 17-31 • Free/$40 • Details at outspokane.org and pridestride.org/Spokane

REASONS WHY Locally-owned businesses are good for our economy They create more local jobs They add character to our community They use fresh, quality ingredients Local tastes delicious

THEATER MURDER MOST FUNNY

It’s possible that Clue, the Parker Brothers murder mystery game, is the only board game in history that will ever be successfully dramatized, and its Agatha Christie-style whodunit structure has already inspired a farcical 1985 film and a popular stage musical. Now that film, which has amassed quite a cult following since its release, has been turned into a new comic play, hitting the stage at Sandpoint’s Panida Theater this weekend. Written by Sandy Rustin, the show not only captures the breakneck slapstick pacing of the movie but the investigative fun of a long night hunched around a Clue game board, trying to identify the killer. Was it Miss Scarlet with the candlestick in the library? Or Colonel Mustard in the billiard room with the rope? You’ll have to buy a ticket to find out.

— NATHAN WEINBENDER Clue • Thu-Sat, Oct. 22-24 at 7:30 pm and Sun, Oct. 25 at 3:30 pm • $16/ adults, $8/ages 18 and under • Panida Theater • 300 N. First St., Sandpoint • panida.org • 208-263-9191

SUPPORTERS OF THE 2020 DRINK LOCAL CAMPAIGN

Dry Fly, No-Li, Townshend, One Tree and the Inlander are working together to spread the word that drinking local has a very positive and lasting effect on our community.

OCTOBER 15, 2020 INLANDER 39

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Advice Goddess CODDLE HERDER

My boyfriend’s enabling of his failure-to-launch 26-year-old son is seeming like a deal breaker. Though his son’s very likable, he’s been fired from every job he’s had, including a well-paying delivery job I recently got him, after they perceived liability from his reckless, race-driving ways. His dad lent him a truck, pays the insurance, pays his cellphone bill, and keeps rescuing him on his rent. He spends his days video gaming, getting stoned, and online dating. I was looking forward AMY ALKON to getting married, but I don’t want my house at risk when his son calls for a bailout. I’m also not sure I want a man who doesn’t advance his kids to independence. —Distressed Childhood goes so fast. It’s only a matter of time before Cody is 85 and expected to post his own bail.

Your boyfriend is acting out of empathy for his son. Empathy is taken for granted as a beautiful thing, but it has a dark side. It comes from the German word, “einfuhlung,” meaning “in-feeling” or “feeling into.” Obviously, we can’t actually tap into another person’s feelings, but psychologist Lynn O’Connor explains that when we witness another person’s suffering, our “empathy system is alerted, almost as if we were suffering ourselves.”

Our initial flare of empathy, this “feeling into” another’s suffering, happens automatically. Once we experience it, explain neuroscientists Olga Klimecki and Tania Singer, our empathy can go one of two ways: into unhealthy “empathic distress” or healthy “empathic concern.”

Empathic distress is empathy that quickly turns “me-focused.” We start feeling really bad about how bad we feel in the wake of our friend’s empathy-triggering suffering — to the point that we’re prone to duck our uncomfortable feelings by avoiding our suffering friend. (Nice, huh?) Empathic concern, on the other hand, motivates us to channel our empathy into action. We ask ourselves, “What can I do to alleviate this person’s suffering?” and then get to it.

However, even healthy empathic concern has a dark side. You can alleviate somebody’s immediate suffering but ultimately hurt them long-term, like when you show them that Daddy’s always there to mop up after their irresponsible behavior with a big wad of dollars.

Possibly saving your relationship starts with understanding the complicated mix here. Though Dad is taking action on his son’s behalf (as per empathic concern), he’s probably driven by empathic distress: a longing to immediately alleviate the pain he feels from his son being in trouble. This is pathological empathy: empathy that ultimately harms both the person it’s intended to help and the person doing the helping. For example, in addition to the negative effect on your relationship, you noted (in an email replying to questions I’d asked you) that endlessly picking up his reckless, lazeballs son’s tab has tanked your boyfriend’s own finances.

Of course, actual helping is judicious helping, like a tough-love refusal to make the consequences of Slacker Boy’s actions magically disappear. Forcing this 20-something brat to get socked with the costs is probably the only way he’ll get on the path to becoming an independent, fully functioning adult.

You get this, and you told me you’ve brought it up to your boyfriend “like once a month,” framing it in “constructive terms.” That isn’t working, in large part because Dad has a habit that seems to serve him (at least on the immediate level): Son crashes and burns; Dad swoops in to sweep up the wreckage, and he gets that quick hit of “feel better.”

So, though your boyfriend appears to be listening when you talk, he isn’t really hearing you; that is, really taking it in and then opening his mind to the possibility that you’re right. Only if he really hears you will you see whether he can look critically at his enabling and accept the immediate emotional pain it takes to do what’s best for his son and your relationship long-term.

Since you’ve been unable to get through to him, you might seek out a mediator. A mediator specializes in helping parties truly hear and understand each other. (Find one with a relationship focus at mediate.com, or Google to find free or sliding-scale services locally.) There’s also a DIY option from psychotherapist Nathaniel Branden. Spend 12 hours together in a hotel room: no books, TV, smartphones, naps, or walks outside. Except for bathroom breaks, you remain together at all times. Branden told me that when all “avenues of escape are closed off,” couples experience real breakthroughs in communication.

If you try either or both of these techniques, and your boyfriend still won’t come around, you’ll at least know you’ve done all you could to try to save your relationship. Ideally, the “bonds” of marriage aren’t the sort that involve you risking your house if Slacky Sluffoffsky is too stoned to show up for his court hearing. n

©2020, Amy Alkon, all rights reserved. • Got a problem? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave, #280, Santa Monica, CA 90405 or email AdviceAmy@aol.com (www.advicegoddess.com)

40 INLANDER OCTOBER 15, 2020

I SAW YOU WAVING YOUR MASK IN DEFIANCE AFTER YOUR COVID-19 ISOLATION AT WALTER REED. MORE NOW THAN EVER... I hope the nuclear codes in that football are not the actual codes. Yes, I know what that means, but if COVID-19 has an effect on mental capacity, President Donald Trump has never been less capable. I honestly wonder if the ‘Melatonin Wars’ the Far-Right is aiming for will spill out, beyond our (fortified) borders and spark a nuclear response. I have a friend who voted for Donald Trump last time around. We never talk politics, but she informed me, before the 2016 election, that she thought “it was ridiculous that people were saying he could start a war.” We don’t have guns, but we’re buying extra canned goods every week. And yes, I’d share them with the Trump supporters up the street.

Some of whom, I imagine, see their president’s survival, enhanced by an array of uncertain pharmacology cocktails, as a sign from GOD. “Live and Lose!” That is my hope for President Trump.

I EXTENDED YOUR REACH Trader Joe’s 10/4 afternoon. You walked into my aisle and I couldn’t move. Stunned. You couldn’t reach something. I did for you.

I wish you well.

CHEERS

RE: HANDICAP PARKING FREAKOUT Thank you for bringing to attention the blatantly obvious discrimination against disabled people in our area. We’re absolutely disgusted that such a jerk should feel that it is appropriate to harass someone with a placard, as well as her own family member. Perhaps the man getting a haircut was in a hurry or, more likely, is just another angry, redneck Trumptard; pissed off because people who are “less” than his status have the right to park closer to establishments than he can to his own barber shop. Consider all aspects... Now: We loved every word you wrote, up until the point where you called out this man’s supposed age range. Wow... So you’ve just proven, on public record, that you are an ignorant, little-minded, whiny AGEIST — therefore YOU also harbor irrational discriminations. Does this make you any better than the Toyota driver? Answer that to yourself while you read this and reconsider your level of respect of others in society besides your mom. Act accordingly...

CHEERS TO OUR SPOKANE LIBRARIANS AND STAFF A shout out to the staff and librarians of our Spokane County and City libraries! They were able to keep the library services going by developing their “drive thru” book reservation system providing a welcome outlet for readers young and old. They staffed the drive thru during all kinds of weather-hot summer, rainy spring, smoke, wind, etc.!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

THANK YOU FLY! In case you missed the Vice Presidential debate the other night between Kamala Harris and Buffoon Mike Pence, a fly landed on the flour white head of Pence and stayed there for approximately 2 minutes. Now we all no flies know excrement when they see, smell, and in this case hear it! Couldn’t happen to a more scary person, except maybe Trump. Thank you fly!

JUMPING CAR AFTER CASPER A huge THANK YOU to all the amazing folks that helped me jump my car after the drive-in movie of Casper on 10/10. You were all so patient and kind. I will never forget it.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT

Cheers for those showing support to SNAP recently — large anonymous donations, donations from people we helped in the past, and donations from many people who are helping us with our current Power of Connection campaign!

THANK YOU to the many who give back to their community and want to support

“

what we believe is both disappointing and discouraging. I hoped by this time in our history we would be judging people by the content of the character and not by the color of their skin. Apparently not all of us are there yet. So we invite you and anyone else who would like to join us on Saturday mornings to come and enjoy

To the dude in the yellow T-shirt at Liberty Lake Safeway. ... I was really looking forward to that soup and you killed it for me.

their neighbors — we thank you and your neighbors thank you! The Power of Connection will get Spokane through this!

JEERS SPOKANE ROAD WORK Jeers to the poor planning from Spokane roads. For those of us who need access to Upriver Drive from Greene Street, how are we supposed to get there in a timely manner? You’ve closed off the access road to Upriver Drive after having removed all of the other access roads north of it. Then you decided to restrict the flow of traffic on Market in both directions. This is one of the busiest roads (as evidenced by the North/South corridor). So, you decide to close everything at once while working on this and let people guess how to get onto Upriver Drive? You don’t have any detour signs or notifications as to what work is being completed or when any of the roads are expected to reopen. If there is an accident on Market, how do you expect emergency vehicles to move?

Idiotic!

GHOSTLY CHEMICAL WARFARE IN PRODUCE To the dude in the yellow T-shirt at Liberty Lake Safeway. Damn Dude!!!!! So... I am walking through the produce section heading towards the

SOUND OFF

1. Visit Inlander.com/isawyou by 3 pm Monday. 2. Pick a category (I Saw You, You Saw Me, Cheers or Jeers). 3.

Provide basic info: your name and email (so we know you’re real). 4. To connect via I Saw You, provide a non-identifying email to be included with your submission — like “petals327@yahoo.com,” not “j.smith@comcast.net.”

Health

soup by the deli, ‘cause we are doing soup and grilled cheese for dinner. Well I see this guy who was casually walking toward me, to all the sudden blows by me like he had to be somewhere and quick. Didn’t think anything of it.

UNTIL... right before I hit the soup stand it hit me so hard through my face mask I

Family

almost puked. At that point I turned and watched you high tail it out of produce.

You, dude, reek and probably showed, so get your colon cleansed. I was really looking forward to that soup and you killed it for me.

FLYING THE AMERICAN FLAG I am writing in response to the letter titled, “Flag Hijackers,” in your Oct. 1 edition. In that letter the writer stated that the American flag has been hijacked by some group.

I can’t speak for the trucks that drive around Spokane with American flags on them but I can speak for the group that flies them on the overpass of I-90 each Saturday morning because I am one of them. We are not a political group tied to a particular party or candidate. We love our country and felt that flying the flags it might give hope and maybe unite people. There are no political flags or signs there, only American flags. We invite anyone to come and join us and enjoy the positive feedback we get from the several thousand people each Saturday for an hour when they honk their horns, wave through their windshields, blink their lights, give a thumbs up or show us the peace sign. It really is a great experience. I was dismayed with the writers suggestion that we think we are better, smarter and more worthy because of the color of our skin. To make that statement without first finding out who we are and

”

the experience. After all the American flag is as much yours as it is mine. Jim Sanderson, Spokane STOLEN BIDEN/HARRIS SIGNS To the Trump supporter coward who stole several Biden/Harris yard signs in our neighborhood: thank you! I now feel confident Trump will lose because you are afraid of our signs! You can steal our signs but not our votes! You’re a coward just like your Trumpster.

RE: DEFUND ROBERT HEROLD (SEPT 10) I like Robert Herold. He is a very smart man. If more people thought like him, our country would be in a much better place right now. Keep speaking truth to power Robert! Don’t let the naysayers stop you! n

THIS WEEK'S ANSWERS M A Z D A S I A T H A N K S U P E O N E W I N E T U R L A O T T A M I D A M E I H A V E A T E U S E R

A N K A R A

G I B B O D N R A W T H E E N N S

R E A D I N G E O D I T O R E O W L S M T N A T I G H T E C U A B R O W B E R O T G O T H A D I A N Y A

S A J A P I A N S F R I D O E L A S L U N R I S T E T A R F E V E R A E T A L T C G A C K H U L E A A L L D A L E I C S L E E

K O A L A

S I R Y A P

NOTE: I Saw You/Cheers & Jeers is for adults 18 or older. The Inlander reserves the right to edit or reject any posting at any time at its sole discretion and assumes no responsibility for the content.

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annabis-infused beverages have come a long way in recent years, but by and large they’re still closer to NyQuil than soda. With dosage instructions on the bottle and those little cough-syrup-style measuring cups, most products aren’t meant to be cracked open and sipped on like a beer or a seltzer.

Which is why last week’s news that Pabst Blue Ribbon is releasing a THCinfused seltzer, though only in California, is such a disappointment here in Washington. Clocking in at 5 milligrams of THC per can, the PBR seltzer is different than almost every other product on the market.

Unlike the 100-milligram heavyweights that dominate dispensary shelves around here, PBR’s seltzer is something you can actually drink — all of it, at once.

Someday, hopefully, us Washingtonians will get the chance to try this new Pabst product. Until then, we don’t have

42 INLANDER OCTOBER 15, 2020

many but we have a few options if we’re looking to go bottoms up without getting too stoned.

OLALA SPARKLING WATER

Perhaps the most common infused beverage available in our region with a low-THC content is Olala. Their products pack twice the punch as the PBR seltzer — coming in at 10 milligrams per bottle — but still fall firmly in the category of beverages you can finish in one sitting without risking a high that is far too strong. Plus, they’re flavored seltzers, which makes them about as trendy as can be.

EVERGREEN HERBAL’S APPLE CIDER

This one may not bring much in terms of volume — 6.3 ounces is barely more than

half of your typical packaged beverage — but it overperforms in terms of seasonal flavor. Pumpkin spice be damned; it’s cider season and a bottle of this will prove it. Ranging from $10-$12 around town, depending on where you find it, this sippable cider proves exceptionally drinkable. Even if it doesn’t last as long as you might like.

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If the cider was on the small side, Vertus’ play on nonalcoholic champagne is surely on the bigger side of things. At 750 milliliters — same as a traditional bottle of wine — this bubbly has a girth unmatched among infused beverages. Though, with just 50 milligrams of THC, it’s certainly not high potency. This isn’t a drink-it-all kind of product. But, then again, neither is a bottle of champagne. Like the wine it imitates, you’ll be able to down a glass, or two, with ease. n

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11. Suffix with billion 12. Hard time, so to speak 13. Speedy Gonzales cry 14. Eucalyptus eater 19. One of the lesser apes 20. Pucker-producing 24. Boar’s mate

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56. Pic posted by Charlton Heston that was taken on the set of a 1959 movie?

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42. “Waltz Across Texas” country singer Ernest

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OCTOBER 15, 2020 INLANDER 45

COEUR D ’ ALENE

Limited number of tickets per day for safe social distancing measures.

OCTOBER 23-25: Scavenger Hunt

aybe you wet your whistle for good beer during Oktoberfest celebrations, including the one in downtown Coeur d’Alene recently. Or you’re just jonesing for the simple pleasure of having an adult beverage with others, especially outdoors on the patio while the weather is still oh-so-fine.

Either way, Coeur d’Alene is beer-central for you and your besties in the quest for a pint.

NOVEMBER 6-8: Shop Hop

Start your adventure at COEUR D’ALENE TAPHOUSE UNCHAINED (cdataphouse.com), with 24-rotating taps (including cider) and a weekday happy hour 3:30-5:30 pm. In addition to their full-service bar, Taphouse Unchained has a full-service menu from handhelds like burgers, sandwiches and pizza, to appetizers and entrees.

NOVEMBER 20-22: Gobble Wobble DECEMBER 4-6: Santa Visits Elf on the Shelf DECEMBER 11-13: Elf on the Shelf

Just down the street, CRAFTED TAPHOUSE + KITCHEN carries more than 60 rotating taps (craftedtaphouse.com) and is known for their gastropub menu and huge patio, firepits at the ready for those cooler breezes off the lake in the fall.

DECEMBER 18-20: Elf on the Shelf Cocoa Tasting For more details go to : cdadowntown.com/micro-event-series

C O E U R

Journey to Coeur d’Alene in your quest for the best beer

M

OCTOBER 31: Apple Palooza at Fall Fest

things to do & places to stay.

Quenching Your Thirst for Adventure

Plan your day of fun now!

OCTOBER - DECEMBER 2020

cda4.fun for more events,

Have a pint of Guinness with your bangers and mash at CROWN AND THISTLE (crownandthistlepub.com), a Britishstyle pub with a modest yet impeccably curated beer list, including traditional caskconditioned ales.

BIER HAUS covers a different part of the European scene with imported cans and bottles, as well as classic German beers on tap like Munich’s own Hofbrau Original and Dark, both. Check out their outdoor “biergarten” and their German-inspired menu, from schnitzel to sauerkraut.

If your geographic focus is more local and you’re willing to branch out from Sherman Avenue, try SWEET LOU’S RESTAURANT AND TAPHOUSE (sweetlousidaho.com), where Northwest beers are highlighted, the burgers are definitely sweet and the view of the lake is not to be missed.

Up Fourth Street, visit Coeur d’Alene’s newest brewpub, JEREMIAH JOHNSON BREWING COMPANY MIDTOWN PUB, serving up a small pub menu and plenty of their own Montana-brewed beer (Facebook: @ jeremiahjohnsonbrew).

Just across the street, pay homage to one of Coeur d’Alene’s oldest sports bars: CAPONE’S PUB & GRILL, with “more taps than tables” (caponespub.com/locations/cdapub). One of three such locations, Capone’s Coeur d’Alene is the place to go for weekday happy hour (3-7 pm), some of the best pizza in town, and an assortment of beer that will leave you wondering how soon you can plan your next beer run into Coeur d’Alene.

D ’A L E N E

Upcoming Events

COEUR D’ALENE

Last Battle Tour

Circling Raven Fall Special

Join local historians and tribal members for a day of storytelling and a visit to the Steptoe Battlefield State Park Heritage site, where a conflict erupted between the U.S. government and the Coeur d’Alene, Palouse and Spokane Tribes. $50, 8:30-4 pm, Coeur d’Alene Casino.

Experience fall golf at its finest — and at some of the best prices of the year.

Circling Raven’s Fall Special features 18-holes of this award-winning course, a cart, GPS and use of their practice facility for only $55.

OCTOBER 17

OCTOBER 19-22

North Idaho’s Great Pumpkin Fest OCTOBER 23-25

Pick the perfect pumpkin, enjoy wagon rides, lots of great food and stein hosting at the first annual Great Pumpkin Fest at the Kootenai County Fairgrounds.

Fri, noon-6 pm; Sat, 10 am-6 pm; Sun, 10 am-4 pm.

cda4.fun for more events, things to do & places to stay.

46 INLANDER OCTOBER 15, 2020

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

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S AT U R D AY, O C T O B E R 3 1 FROM 8PM TO 1:30AM

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OCTOBER 15, 2020 INLANDER 47

Play where the big winners play.

Specials to Savor 8 oz. Prime Rib Dinner SUNDAYS | 4:30 PM – 8:30 PM $23.99 | $28.99 without Coeur Rewards discount

Spin & Win Hotel Package PACKAGES FOR TWO STARTING AT

$89.99

8 oz. chef carved slow-roasted prime rib.

Served with a twice-baked potato and your choice of house or Caesar salad.

One-night stay in a Mountain Lodge Room

New York Steak

$20 Extra Play Cash

SUNDAY – THURSDAY | 4 PM – CLOSE $20.99 | $23.99 without Coeur Rewards discount 12 oz. New York strip seasoned and beer butter-basted. Served with loaded baked potato and chef’s choice of vegetables and half garden salad.

VISIT CDACASINO.COM TO BOOK YOUR PACKAGE TODAY. Use code “SPINANDWIN” Valid Now - October 31ST

Buffalo Chicken Grilled Cheese

Bid to Win Fundraiser!

ALL OCTOBER | 7 AM - 12 AM $10.99

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17 TH | 3 PM – 7 PM

Your choice of white or wheat bread grilled and topped with melted cheddar cheese and chicken strips tossed in a buffalo sauce and served with french fries.

Place your bid to win deluxe stay and play packages, executive chef private dining experiences, spa goods, unique Coeur d’Alene guided cultural tours and more. 100% of funds raised will go to Kootenai Health Breast Cancer Patient Services.

See cdacasino.com for additional details.

W E LC O M E H O M E .

CASINO

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HOTEL

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DINING

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SPA

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CHAMPIONSHIP

GOLF

3 7 9 1 4 S O U T H N U K WA LQ W • W O R L E Y, I D A H O 8 3 8 76 • 1 8 0 0 - 5 2 3 - 2 4 6 4 • C D A C A S I N O . C O M