Author photo

By PAUL DELANEY
Staff Reporter 

Lefevre Street puts Medical Lake on map

Bakery and café earns notoriety in American Automobile Association regional magazine

 

Last updated 5/17/2018 at 8:28am

Paul Delaney

Medical Lake's Lefevre Street Bakery Café might be a new destination for travelers after being featured in AAA travel magazine.

As those who live there know, you gotta' want to get to Medical Lake to visit its waterfront, trails and other elements that make the bedroom community special.

There are no major highways, just State Route 902 passing through the city that has just clicked over the population signs at the city limits to a sprinkle over 5,000 people.

And a lot of people really like it that way.

One part of the community that has become popular with the residents, and now, perhaps, by those looking for a special place to grab homemade pastries, breakfast, lunch and other goodies, is the nearly two-year-old Lefevre Street Bakery Café.

Generally always busy during its breakfast and lunch times, the place stands to have more customers seeking out the signature monster sweet rolls. That would maybe come now that Lefevre Street carved out a small space in the "Departures" section on page 14 of the May/June 2018 Journey Western Magazine of the American Automobile Association (AAA).

"Medical Lake is a small, unassuming town just off I-90, 14 miles southwest of Spokane," Cheryl-Anne Milsap in the magazine. "It's not thought of as a destination, but a bakery with enthusiastic followers is helping change that."

Ever since opening May 25, 2016 in the former home of Chan's Restaurant, Lefevre Street has been a hit in a town that has not had a place to grab a sit-down breakfast or lunch in a couple of years since LindaBee's Diner closed.

In a June 16, 2016 Cheney Free Press story, owners Kevin and Brenda Gerhart hardly took the usual path into what is generally considered a very difficult business at which to succeed.

Neither had prior restaurant business experience - Kevin had a long career in the dairy industry and Brenda in business administration - before they opened the Petit Chat Village Bakery located in North Spokane near Whitworth University. After building it into a smashing success, the Gerharts sold the business in September 2014.

The couple actually thought about leaving the area until their two sons ended up back in Spokane. "We just started looking for different opportunities, and I actually saw the Chan's Restaurant (was) for sale," Kevin said.

Surveying the town, and from their experience in Spokane where much of their support came from the older neighborhood, they saw similar potential in Medical Lake.

Whatever hunch they had has certainly seemed to pay off.

As Milsap closed her piece, "The Lefevre Street Bakery Café has helped put Medical Lake in a sweet spot on the map."

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.

 

Reader Comments(0)

 
 

Our Family of Publications Includes:

Cheney Free Press
Ritzville Adams County Journal
Whitman County Gazette
Odessa Record
Franklin Connection
Davenport Times
Spokane Valley News Herald
Colfax Daily Bulletin

Powered by ROAR Online Publication Software from Lions Light Corporation
© Copyright 2024

Rendered 03/27/2024 08:03