Serving Good Food Fast for the Last 25 Years

SEELEY LAKE – Having little restaurant experience, Tim and Connie Clark purchased Pop's Place in 1991. After 25 years, they said the best thing about the business has been the relationships they have developed with the residents of Seeley Lake and all the friends they have made along the way.

The community is invited to join the Clarks for a 25-year Open House Friday, Nov. 4 from 2-4 p.m. They will be serving hamburgers and cheeseburgers all day for buy one, get one for $0.25.

Both Tim and Connie were raised in the area. While still in high school, she worked as a cook and waitress in Kalispell, Mont. and Tim grew up around Holland Lake.

The Clarks decided they wanted to return to the area after living in Snohomish, Wash. Tim's parents noticed that Pop's was listed for sale in the Seeley Swan Pathfinder.

"We had discussed owning a restaurant or something like it a lot over the years," said Tim. "I could always cook. I learned to cook at a very young age because my mother wanted to make sure I could take care of myself."

They came to Seeley Lake on a weekend and met with the owners Ron and Anita Richards and Millie Jette who worked for the Pathfinder.

"We made them an offer and they took the offer. It was all on if we could sell our house in Washington," said Tim. "We sold our house in a week."

The Clarks took ownership Nov. 4, 1991. Tim said that is when the learning started.

They listened to a lot of advice from their food service representative. They attended food shows and everything else that they could to learn about the food service industry and how to make their business better.

"The best piece of advice was from Ron and Anita," said Connie. "Plan on working the business."

Work it they did. Tim said for the first seven years he worked 17 hours a day, six days a week. Connie worked just about as many hours. Tim's sister Mary Stuart helped take care of their four children Bobby, JC, Gina and Tucker until they were old enough to start working at the restaurant.

"We had a couple of built in dishwashers when we moved here because Bobby and JC were eight and nine," said Connie. They made sure all their children learned to cook.

Connie remembers when they first opened she made bean soup, "before I knew how to make soup."

"I thought I had it good to go. Leon Bergan ordered the bean soup and I bring it out to him. He calls me back and says, "You've got to cook the beans." I thought I had cooked the heck out of them but apparently I didn't."

A couple weeks later he returned and the bean soup was on the menu. After hassling Connie, he ordered it again. Connie put some dry beans in the cup and poured hot water over it and served it to him. "You have to have some fun," said Connie.

When Gina was around three years old, she started helping at the restaurant. She had her own apron and would walk through the diner. Tim said people would just hand her money. Connie remembers her bussing a table. As she was walking back to the kitchen with a glass of water, she stopped and took a big drink.

Pop's had been many different businesses before the Richards owned it. When the Clarks took over, Pop's was a drive in, seating 18 people inside. Tim said from the very beginning they had planned to expand to an indoor family-style restaurant.

"The other place was miserable to work in [because it was hard to heat and keep cool and took on water]," said Tim. "We had Lake Pops outside the front door [because there was poor drainage in the front]. I would tease everyone that it was time to raise the prices because we were on lake front property."

Those dreams became a reality in the summer of 1999. Tim Tanberg, Mark Williams and the Clarks started construction of the new building next to the old drive-in during the winter of 1998. They closed the doors for a month while they tore the old building down. They opened Pop's Place Family Restaurant in June 1999.

Tim said the Richards named it Pop's Place.

"Their daughter was working for them [Richards] and her dad owned it so it was Pop's Place," said Tim.

Connie said the locals told them that the business had had so many names in the past that they decided to keep it the same.

Pop's has always served burgers and chicken strips. They expanded their menu to include breakfast and tout the best breakfast in town. They also make all their soups and bake goods from scratch including cinnamon and caramel rolls, cookies, brownies and pies. They added wraps when they opened the new building and barbeque after getting their first smoker in the mid-2000s.

"I always told people we don't serve fast food, we serve good food fast. We still do," said Tim. "Every couple of years we revamp the menu."

They started catering in the early 2000s. Tim said there was a market in town for catering so they thought they would try it. It cost people $200 just to get caters to come up from Missoula, Pop's offered the service without the fees.

"We can cook well and we can get along with people fairly well," said Tim. "So far we have been pretty successful with the events we have done. I enjoy it because the menu is simpler [and less stressful than short order cooking] and you can concentrate on making something really delicious."

Initially the biggest challenge for the Clarks was learning how to run a restaurant. It was a lot harder work than Tim thought it would be. Other challenges have included transitioning to digital books, learning when they should take advice, understanding that they can't please everyone all of the time, and finding help.

Jen Stevenson has worked for them on and off for the past 20 years.

"Jen has been a bright spot in here," said Tim. "People come in here just to see Jen."

Pop's early morning coffee crew, dubbed "the board of directors," has been a mainstay throughout the years.

"Diverse bunch of people. Everything from college professors to the smartest one being a milkman," said Tim. "The best piece of advice they gave us was to quit doing dinner."

For the past three years the Clarks stopped doing dinner because they were losing money on it. This year they resumed serving dinners on Friday and Saturday nights.

They have never gotten a beer and wine or liquor license or put in gaming machines.

"We wanted a family place. This is the only place in town that you can go into and people aren't drinking. We wanted to keep it that way," said Tim.

They are grateful for the opportunity to move back home and raise their children in Seeley Lake, to be able to travel with them when they were in sports and for all the people they have met along the way. The Clarks credit the support of the community for keeping them in business for 25 years.

Connie said, "Seeley Lake has been good to us through the hard times and the good."

Pop's Place is currently on the market as a turnkey operation with 25 years of experience. If anyone is interested call them, 677-2970.