LINDA FRICKEL OF THE OWL CAFÉ:
.An Article by James Woodcock / Gazette Staff Aug 31, 2012 ….In This Article => Linda Frickel is quoted as Follows =>: ,,,, The Owl Café has been in the same location since 1916. In those almost 100 years, it was only closed for two years. I purchased it in 1996 and reopened it because it was closed in 1994 and 1995. It was stupidity, I think. One of my son’s good friends Justin’s mother, Mary, used to work there. We got on the conversation of reopening the restaurant. One thing led to another, and I started looking into it. ….My son, Dirk, was still in high school and he helped me out when I bought this place. He worked his way up from dishwasher to backup cook and ended up going to culinary school in Portland. He came back to help run the restaurant. He came home a few times and made these fancy dinners. I told him Laurel is more a meat-and-potatoes place and we’ll have to take it in baby steps. Now he’s the executive chef at Hilands Golf Course. [Billings MT] One dish that he brought back that we put on the menu is Spaetzle, a pea-sized pasta that we make here and serve sautéed with cabbage, red onions, bacon and gorgonzola cheese.
Cooking background: I don’t mind cooking. I’ve always cooked at home and stuff. .. I had never cooked in a restaurant before. It always fascinated me how they get all this food out at one time. One morning I got a phone call at 5:30 that we don’t have a cook. I thought, “I’m not a cook.” But I went in and did it. That was 16 years ago. Now I work the evening shift. …Most popular dish on the menu: One that has been a mainstay at the Owl is the pork or beef noodles. It’s been on the menu for 50 years or better. My folks would come over and get two orders to go and we’d split them. They are curly Chinese noodles, almost like a spaghetti noodle, served with chicken or a beef broth and with diced pork or beef. It comes with red, yellow and orange peppers and leeks and topped with a boiled egg. … We also sell a lot of chicken fried steaks. We make our own with cube steaks and bread them with flour and Chinese rice flakes. ….SPECIALTIES: We use lots of the ideas Dirk came back from Portland with about cooking healthy and making everything from scratch. We buy local as much as we can and try to cook with ingredients that don’t have a lot of preservatives. We belong to the Western Sustainability Exchange out of Livingston. We have to have so many products on our menu that are purchased locally. We also recycle and don’t use Styrofoam. END WholeStoryContinuedNextPhoto. Photo File =. LindaFrickleOfTheOwlCafe StafWtrJamesWoodcock BillingsGa31Aug2012= IviewScrnCapt .jpg …. Originally Posted May 2019, Revised 27 Sept 2020.

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Sun 27 Sep 2020 12:41:07 PM EDT