Bird Ridge Café to close after 12 years of service

By Ken Smith
Turnagain Times

The Bird Ridge Café is closing its doors for good. Eric and Veronica Lambertsen have been serving homemade food to locals and tourists alike for over 12 years, but on Friday, July 27, the last dish will be served.
“We’re going to be closing the café and running the motel primarily,” said Eric, 40, while serving a breakfast dish to a patron. “It’s bitter sweet in some respects. We’ve had a number of years that’s under our belt. Veronica and I have been running the café and renovating the motel, running the motel, and at the same time running an RV park. The kids are getting older, my eldest is nine years old now, and we wanted to concentrate more of our time and to focus our attention toward them and being more a part of their lives.”
The Lambertsen’s have three children: Alice, 9, Erick Jr., 7 and Sophia, 3. Veronica, 33, is due to give birth to another child at the end of August.
The café has a long history in Bird Creek beginning when Ernie and Mary Coulter bought the property in 1956. The couple started the Scottish Inn in the early 60’s, painting the building as a kilt. They then built the motel in the late 60’s.
Naler and Hellen Johnston bought the business in the 1970’s, but shortly after they renovated the café, it was destroyed in a fire. Unde-terred, they rebuilt it and ran a popular bar and café, which also featured a poolroom.
The Johnston’s leased the Inn to a couple in the early 1980’s; but there were more than biscuits and gravy being served. ‘Alaska homegrown’ stickers were stuck on the outside of the building, and a drug bust shut down the business.
It remained empty until Veronica’s parents Adrienne and Frederick Lyon bought it in the winter of 1988, and ran it until the winter of 1995. Veronica’s father passed away in Nov. 2003 and her mother is retired and living with her sister in Connecticut.
Eric and Veronica took over the business in ’95 and invested much time and money renovating the motel. It was a laborious but rewarding job running the café, and they have a lot of memories tied up in it, said Eric. They also operated the café for more consecutive years than any other previous owners.
“We’re hearing a lot from the locals that it will be missed as a restaurant option,” Veronica said. “We wanted to still live in Bird Creek because of how pretty it is, so we didn’t want to sell it. So that’s why we’re just turning the cafe into our home and then a motel office check in, and we’ll run the motel like a B&B and still live here.”
Veronica has been in the restaurant business for more than half her life, and said she’s looking forward to retiring and raising her children: The Lambertsens have been married for 11 years while running a business together, which they admit can be challenging.
“Your lives are woven together much more closely when you run a business together,” said Eric. “But we have had as our focus our faith, which is the Byzantine Catholic faith. And that has been a true foundation for relating to one and other personally as well as business. So, it can be difficult, but we have a structure to love one and other through thick and thin.”
Eric was also battling the Alaska Department of Transportation over moving the Bird Ridge Café sign out of the state right-of-way, which has been an ongoing dispute between the DOT and Bird and Indian businesses. Eric said it has been a strain, and one of the factors that led to closing the café.
“As a commercial property, we’re looking, as well, at the fact that the state is diminishing our ability to function as a café by taking down the sign,” he said. “It was one of the factors that was a turning point. We definitely want to focus more on our children and family, I mean that’s a huge part of our decision. But the other aspect of our decision is what is the viability of a restaurant or a café business functioning without the ability to advertise along this highway with signage.”
Eric said the sign must be moved 650 feet from the centerline of the highway, placing it behind the café.
Nonetheless, they are convinced they’re doing the right thing by closing the café, and continuing with the motel business.
“It’s been a lot of local support, and we do realize we are going to be missed, and we really appreciate that,” Veronica said. “We’ll miss a lot of people too, but we hope to still keep in touch with potlucks and entertainment locally.”