Business Profile: Innovating dining
May 18—COLFAX — The smell of garlic sauteing on the stove permeated the dining room of Wild Ember Kitchen in Colfax at midday.
The staff was preparing garlic to season tacos the restaurant had planned for a special Cinco de Mayo dinner that evening.
The tacos are among the many dishes Colfax High School graduate Trevor Miller has developed for the restaurant with fellow chef and significant other Amanda Packer since the business's debut about a year ago.
"I don't like to lean toward anything specific," Miller said. "I just like to have freedom to do whatever food I would like. So that's what I like about the name. It doesn't make you think of any one thing."
Often that freedom leads him to put tacos on the menu. Street tacos ($18) with seared pork belly are one of the biggest sellers. They come in corn tortillas with cabbage, corn salsa, jalapenos, cotija (a type of cheese) and aji verde (a Peruvian sauce).
For Cinco de Mayo, Miller was trying a new taco with beef tongue, curious to see how it would be received.
"We've got a pretty good following," he said. "People come here and try new things they might not try anywhere else because they know it's going to be good."
The innovation at Wild Ember Kitchen extends beyond the food. The Colfax Downtown Association renovated the former bank in a single-story, 3,521-square-foot building into a restaurant incubator. The majority of the money for the upgrade came from a $2.26 million grant from the Washington State Department of Commerce.
Miller and Packer earned the opportunity to use the space through a competitive process and are leasing it at a subsidized rate.
I spoke with Miller and Packer about how they developed the restaurant, what their plans are for the venture and what led them to Colfax.
An edited version of our conversation follows:
Elaine Williams: The availability of an incubator restaurant space with subsidized rent prompted you to scrap your plans for a food truck and open here. Could you share more about how that happened?
Trevor Miller: We moved to Colfax because our oldest son was 5 years old and we wanted him to attend school here. We were going to open a food truck. I started doing food at The Cellar Wine and Beer Bar in Colfax. The downtown association kept hounding me to apply for this.
This is a dream. I always wanted to have a restaurant like this in Colfax, but it's expensive. The buildings are old. It's just a daunting idea to come in with a few million dollars to remodel. But since it's a downtown association that owns and it was a government grant, I was like "All right. Now I'll give it a shot now because there's not a whole bunch on the line." We just order the food, the plates and the liquor and get all the licensing for it. If we had to come in and buy a building and remodel it — I love Colfax, but I wouldn't have picked Colfax.
EW: Let's switch gears and talk about your career backgrounds. Trevor, you discovered your love of cooking at Arby's in Colfax and completed your training at Le Cordon Bleu of Culinary Arts in Portland, Ore. Amanda, you earned your culinary credentials at the Le Cordon Bleu of Culinary Arts in Scottsdale, Ariz. How did your paths first cross?
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TM: We were both working at a high-end resort about 45 minutes north of Missoula. The average vacation there is about a quarter of a million dollars for high-end clientele. I was a line cook because I wasn't going to stay more than one summer. When I met her, she kept me there.
Amanda Packer: I was the private chef for any clients that wanted a private dining experience. I'd create a menu either to their specifications or I would surprise them. When I was doing that, I was the pastry chef. Working at that resort was one of the assignments we had over about five years.
EW: That sounds glamorous. How did you decide to return to Colfax?
TM: It comes with its own headaches and very little time off. We were in a high-demand side of the industry. It was fun, but once you have two boys, you just kind of take a step back and make it easier to have more of a work-life balance.
EW: Let's talk more about what you're doing at Wild Ember Kitchen. Besides tacos, what can diners expect?
TM: We serve a lot of hamburgers. The Whitman County burger is a sirloin, brisket patty with seared ham, American cheese and garlic aioli. I try to keep the ingredients as simple as possible and make sure they work well together. We have a full bar. We have about a dozen drinks that we change seasonally. One is the Golden Paradise with bourbon, house-made pineapple simple syrup, cardamom bitters and orange peel.
EW: You mentioned this business plays a broader role than just being a restaurant. What do you mean by that?
TM: It's pretty diverse. We get a lot of locals. We get a lot of people from all over, including Lewiston and Spokane. They come and meet. We had four ladies sit here that hadn't seen each other in 10 years. They sat and chit-chatted for five hours. They love that there's a new place they can come in and sit and have some good drinks and good food.
EW: Now that you're hitting your stride, how long do you think you'll be here?
TM: I don't know. We're planning to do catering. We could extend the lease as long as five years or stay longer if no one is interested in the space. My parents live 15 minutes outside of town on a farm. Our two sons spend a lot of time with them in the summer. There's no rush to decide.
Williams is the business editor of the Tribune and Moscow-Pullman Daily News. She may be contacted at ewilliam@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2261.
About Wild Ember Kitchen
Address: 102 N. Main St., Colfax
Hours: 3-9 p.m. Sunday, Monday and Wednesday; and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday through Saturday.
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