I actually came out here for a sabbatical from the corporate world.

I was running kitchens at a ski resort in Montana.

With maybe, you know, 20, 30, 40 people under me that I had to manage, and I just needed a break.

My family was out here, off and on.

They lived in Kingston and Hillsboro and kind of knew the area, so.

I lasted about a month.

And then I saw the help wanted sign in the window of the cafe, and I was like, I'll work for a little bit.

So and then four years later, here I am and, bought this restaurant from the previous owners in an effort with the community to keep this place alive Ben and Doreen, the former owners were really adamant about keeping a restaurant here.

So, I decided to finally bite the bullet and put down some roots here in Hillsboro.

And, keep the place open and, It's been pretty amazing.

You know, we've got our coffee crew in the morning.

who they're standing outside the door at 8 Oclock in the morning waiting to put our flag out for us and come in and have a cup of coffee.

You know, it's kind of a great community because, you know.

And we miss when they're not here for coffee in the morning.

It's like, oh, what's what's going on?

Where are they?

What?

You know, are they okay?

Our great neighbors across the street, Richard and Gloria, used to come in here, every single day for both meals.

And they still, we, you know, they're the only people that we deliver to.

If it wasn't for the community here, I would have never in a million years thought about opening a restaurant in 2026.

With the climate as it is, the financial uncertainty.

I mean, it's not a great time to be in the food business, but the community for sure keeps us alive.

I know that it was it was an actual general store, a pharmacy, like a doctor's office in the back.

It's been the phone operator, like station, before everything went digital.

And it's been a restaurant for, I want to say about 50 years that it's been continuous.

Ben and Doreen purchased the cafe as a restaurant from the previous owner, who ran it for 20 plus years.

It's kind of been the Hillsboro General Store cafe for a while now.

So.

So it was, historical preservation grant specifically focusing on the exterior of the building, and upgrades.

And so with that, we vamped patio, it used to have, like a plastic wood railing around the outside.

An so we got that done.

And the new door.

We could tell if you were a local or not, If you could open the door.

A lot of times there'd be people standing there rattling, rattling the door, trying to get in, and, kind of difficult, historical old door.

But, yeah, the previous owner, had actually applied, for that.

So he's still in charge of making sure that we follow through on, on all of those things.

But, the community is really appreciated.

The menu that I inherited, I love dearly.

I cooked it for four years before I bought the place.

We really do kind of the red and green chili, really well.

And being so close to Hatch, all of our, you know, our red and green are from their, pinto beans, and, personally, I'm just slowly rolling out some specials here and there.

A little bit more health focused, vegetarian and vegan friendly.

That's kind of a, niche out here that, there are quite a few people who are, you know, eat plant based, who hadn't been in in a long time just, because it wasn't all that friendly.

So just making little tweaks here and there.

You know, it's right now it's just me back there cooking.

So, the community has learned to be fairly patient, and they know that if the restaurant's full and they walk in, they'll be waiting a little bit.

But generally they're in good spirits about it, and they're happy to wait for, for the food, which makes me really proud.

So, that was one of my big requests was don't get rid of the pie.

Doreen was nice enough to give me the recipes, she's been baking for 25 years.

So yeah, blackberry, raspberry, blueberry, peaches and rhubarb.

And, yeah, everybody comes in asking like, oh, what is a bumble berry?

I've never heard of it.

It's not any one berry.

It's the mixture of all of them.

And it's, it's pretty great.

Looking towards the future, being open more days, training some people to help in the kitchen.

So that we can be, you know, open more days.

I would love to get an espresso machine and just you know, maybe the days that we don't have the full menu still be open for you know, coffee drinks and pie and muffins and stuff like that.

And then, just getting a few more like special events.

We did a reservation only Valentine's Day dinner that turned out really well and everybody enjoyed.

So just putting a little bit more of me, into the cafe as it grows and just being open more so that people can come and enjoy the space.

Previous owners, they still live in the house next door.

So anytime that I have, a pressing question, I can just run over and knock on the door and, and ask them their thoughts on something.

And they've been instrumental in helping me figure out everything that I need to know to run this place successfully.

I couldn't be happier with how it's running, so.

I mean, come visit, come out here and see us when it's getting too hot.

Yeah, we're a couple thousand feet in elevation, higher than the rest of the area.

Come enjoy our shade and grab some food.

Visit the museum.

We've got some great local artisans with shops out here.

you know, it's a great place to come visit.

The team is strong, the community is strong and yeah, without either of those things this this restaurant wouldn't be possible.