Sykes' gets new life again

Ray Thompson, the company founder who recently sold Semitool, is purchasing the Sykes’ property from Doug and Judy Wise with a plan of opening the restaurant in about three weeks and a market at a later date.

Judy Wise confirmed the sale on Friday. She said the business was sold but they haven’t closed the transaction yet.

“He’s going to have the restaurant up and running,” Wise said. “I think they’re going to do a great job.”

Thompson gave an interview at the former restaurant on Friday.

Sitting at the table favored by Doug and Judy, he pointed down at two worn-through spots in the flooring just in front of the kitchen where the two community icons pushed their chairs in and out.

“We have a very special place right here,” he said. “I’m thinking of redoing the floor but putting a frame around those spots and a sign up that says ‘respect.’”

A business first opened as a grocery store in 1905 at the Sykes’ location at Second Avenue and Second Street West in Kalispell, Doug Wise bought the store in 1945 when it was just 25 feet wide and still had a wood stove and a crank cash register.

Wise and his wife expanded the business over the years to include the restaurant and the pharmacy, which continues in business. It served as a social center for many people living in nearby senior housing developments as well as many who drove there daily for companionship.

Thompson said he bought the property to reopen the historic and beloved restaurant/grocery store as a kind of personal mission — to give back to the community that had given so much to him.

“This was never my hangout but I respect everybody that this was their hangout,” he said. “It’s the best of Kalispell.”

A resident of the Flathead Valley during his formative years from age 4 to 16, Thompson said his goal with Sykes’ is to do what is right to preserve the character of the business. He called it a humble place.

“I like it as it is but, more important, the people really like it,” Thompson said. “My job is to give it back to them.”

 Dave Jolly, his right-hand man who developed the facilities for Semitool, is in charge of getting the restaurant up and running, following Thompson’s ideas and visions. Thompson said that not all of his ideas materialize, but he has quite a few in mind.

His first priority is to fix and repave the pothole-strewn parking lot and change the light poles. His second priority is to get the restaurant back open as quickly as possible. His best estimate was three weeks to get the building cleaned up and necessary approvals to open for business.

Thompson listed his third priority as a ground-up reconstruction of the back of the building. Walking back to the former grocery store, he pointed out that the concrete slab ended at the front of the meat section while a basement with a rock and timber foundation was under the rest of the back of the building.

He expects to seal off the area with the basement, tear it down and rebuild it with a solid foundation and new mechanical system. Thompson agreed it requires a substantial investment.

“But it’s right for me to do, for what this community has done for me — for what it means to this part of the community,” he said.

Thompson wants to upgrade the restaurant to add light. He said he would like eventually to widen the restaurant.

“This is kind of a tunnel — it’s dark in here,” Thompson said. “The first thing I want to do is put in some windows.”

Down the road, he would like to add one or two meeting rooms and a raised area for the bands and performers.

Thompson said he places a high priority on not disrupting the pharmacy and barbershop businesses or the church group that now uses the restaurant on Sundays.

He said the minister of the church group asked him which would be the last Sunday they could hold a service.

“I said, ‘When I get a better place for you someplace else,’” Thompson said.

Thompson and Jolly will hire people to manage and work at the restaurant. Thompson said he wants a “soft start” rather than a grand opening for the first days of business.

He said he never has owned a restaurant but he said he has a lot of respect for those who run and manage them with all the issues such as perishable food and extensive customer expectations.

“People think I ran a large, complex business,” Thompson said. “It’s nothing compared to a restaurant.”

He doesn’t have a fixed plan for the grocery/market side of the business. Thompson enjoys turning over in his mind ideas such as installing large, simple touch screens at the senior complex lobbies where people could touch their name and items to make a grocery order directly to the store to deliver to their door.

According to Thompson, his financial situation gives him the flexibility to run a business without having to maximize profits, but he added it’s not a charitable concern — it has to make financial sense. He said that businesses need two things — to be fun and profitable — to succeed.

He expects to do both while continuing the essential qualities that kept people patronizing the legendary business for more than 100 years.

“When people come in here, I want them to feel uplifted but also accepted and welcome,” he said.

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.