New restaurant offers wide variety

Danielle Switalski

Word of mouth can be an amazing tool when starting a new business, especially in a small community.

The Country Kettle opened its doors on Tuesday, December 29 on Highway 200 in Plains to a successful opening day.

“It was hectic and we had a lot of business. We didn’t really advertise and did mostly word of mouth and that traveled really fast, today (Wednesday) was actually busier than yesterday because more people heard about it,” said waitress Christie Hoye whose husband Larry Hoye, father Steve Blanchard and wife Roxanne Blanchard opened the new restaurant.

Hoye said her father and husband began talks to open the family business a year ago because they were interested in bringing something new to the community. The building had been vacant for quite some time as it used to be called the Hilltop and had always been a fixture in Plains, so Steve wanted to keep some of its history, but bring a fresh look and menu to the building and its setting by creating an authentic Mexican food menu, while offering a separate menu with strictly American dishes.

The Country Kettle offers a complimentary basket of chips and homemade salsa to customers upon arrival who choose the Mexican menu.

The Mexican menu offers standard Mexican food such as tacos, enchiladas, quesadillas and flautas. The American menu offers things such as a French dip sandwich, classic hamburgers, pork chops, steak dinner and salads.

“We’ve always loved Mexican food as a family so we thought it would be good to have in our community and we thought we’d try the Mexican food and give people more options, but we still wanted to keep with the American dishes too,” said Hoye.

The restaurant sticks with a country theme decorated in blue and white, with large murals depicting country scenes decorating the walls and blue café stools adding to the classic café feel of the restaurant.

Hoye said they are keeping the employment within the family for the time being except for hiring outside cooks, but hope to expand their menu and as business grows, hopefully hire additional employees. For the time being, the Country Kettle is sticking with two simple menus, but in the coming weeks has plans to expand their menu and add breakfast dishes once the cooks get the hang of the more complex Mexican dishes.