Passing the torch at the Pocketstone Cafe

Dave Vale took a chance on opening a restaurant in downtown Bigfork in 2010, in partnership with his wife Carolyn and their friend Karie Stidham.

Back then, they didn’t know much about how to run a restaurant.

“Our experience in restaurants at that point had been mostly eating and so we basically put together a restaurant that was a place we wanted to eat at, and it took us a few years to figure out how to make money,” Vale said.

More than a decade later, Vale said it’s time to pass the torch to another couple who carry the same excitement and enthusiasm for the Electric Avenue cafe that they had when they first opened it. He recently sold the business and building to Marcus and Shelley Shahen, who officially took over at the beginning of November.

Looking back to when they first opened the restaurant, Vale said they wanted to make it a place that was reminiscent of “what grandma use to make,” but they couldn’t use a home cooking approach to make restaurant food that tastes like it’s homemade.

“You have to do a little bit of industrial engineering to figure out how to better make this stuff fast enough for people to get it to them today, not tomorrow. So we kind of got to learn along the way,” Vale said. “We learned how to do prep and do what we do a lot of currently. We do a lot of kits, we make mixes —like our pancakes are made from a mix that we make — the shaking them together takes up 10 seconds, whereas the making from scratch would probably take 10 minutes, which we just don't have in the restaurant environment.”

Vale said they’ve put a lot into the Pocketstone over the years, but feels like it’s time to take a step away. Now he will turn his attention to his continued work with the Bigfork Community Players and the Valley Voices, sitting on their boards of directors and performing when he can.

Vale praised the new owners.

“I feel pretty good about the people who bought it because they come in, they've got the enthusiasm and the energy that I once had and they seem excited about running a restaurant in downtown Bigfork,” Vale said.

Marcus and Shelley Shahen have a long history of owning and operating restaurants. The couple moved to the valley from northern California in 2018 and really took to Bigfork as their hometown.

“One of our other restaurants, the one that we've had for about 15 years, is in a town a lot bigger than a Bigfork, but it's very much like it. It's a small town and it really just felt like we just gravitated to it … I mean we went to eat in Bigfork, we hung out at the lake — it just became our town,” Shelley said.

The couple has worked both in the kitchen and on the business side of their restaurants, operating everything from mom and pop places, to corporate ventures, to concept restaurants. They said they love the camaraderie and experience that food brings when serving people.

“A restaurant has never been an investment to us, it's always been just what we know. We enjoy people — and we consider ourselves more in the people business than we do in the restaurant business. The great relationships with our guests, our staff and our vendors have always just kind of been the three-legged stool that we've always relied upon,” Marcus said.

They don’t intend to make many changes at the Pocketstone. Shelley said with the restaurant’s prolonged success, there’s not much they feel they need to change about it.

Even though the food is in line with what they look for in a restaurant, they didn’t bargain on getting the great team that the Pocketstone offers.

“After working at the restaurant over the past couple of weeks, I really told all the guests and regulars and new guys and everybody else that the staff was really the special piece of it, and they were the deal maker,” Marcus said. “Shelley and I didn't want to come in and buy a job, we really wanted to come in and be able to be a part of the community, and the staff at the Pocketstone really made all of that possible. I think they're just amazing people.”

They said in particular, Dawn, Cody, Paulette and Camilla have been a huge part of making the transition easy for them.

The Pocketstone Cafe has been a go-to place for tourists and locals alike, staying open through the winter time and open only for breakfast and lunch. One of their busiest days of the year is their annual Thanksgiving dinner.

Their Thanksgiving Dinner feeds 200 people, with three different seatings. There are 30 volunteers to coordinate, and for Marcus and Shelley, was a little like a baptism by fire.

“We felt that it was good, that it was the best thing for us to do. What better way to just say, ‘we would like your blessing to be welcomed and to serve people on Thanksgiving,’” Marcus said.

The Pocketstone Cafe is located at 444 Electric Ave, Bigfork. For information, call 406-837-7223.