Food News: Sun Dog Deli marks first anniversary with expansion
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
By Melanie Stein
After being closed for two and a half weeks, Sun Dog Deli and Café in
Victor, Idaho, has reopened with additional seating, a new bar area, a
south-facing patio and an expanded kitchen.
Open for just over a year, Sun Dog Deli has already generated quite the
buzz in Teton Valley. Owner Sam Lubing, a native Jacksonite, decided to
open the café after completing his degree at the Western Culinary
Institute in Portland, Ore. He’s the only chef at the favorite lunch
and dinner spot.
“I kind of got started in the industry a couple years ago,” Lubing
said. “I started out as a grub cook, like everyone else, and really
kind of fell in love with it.”
After opening Sun Dog as a breakfast and lunch spot, Lubing quickly transitioned to a lunch and dinner café.
“It’s been exciting,” he said. “We catch a lot of people by surprise,
both within the community and just passersby. They stop in for a bite
to eat, and they leave kind of shaking their heads and saying ‘Wow, we
weren’t really looking for that, but we’re glad we stopped in.’”
Lubing buys from local farms as much as he can, though he admits that
Sun Dog’s demand outpaces the farms’ supplies. Soon he will also be
getting lamb from a farm near Sun Valley, Idaho.
“Our dinner menu is a little on the smaller side,” he said. “We print
the menu almost every night so we can switch it up. For lunch, we do
more sandwiches. We have a lot of people that drive over the pass just
to have our burgers.”
To boot, the café boasts a robust selection of German and Belgian beers
that are difficult to find in this region, as well as a large wine
list. “We’re selling enough imported beers that we can get the
distributor to get more and more in,” Lubing said. “We’re constantly
expanding our selection.”
With its increasing popularity and relatively small size, Lubing felt it was time to create more seating options.
“[We took the] original bar counter and we pushed it over to the left
side of the restaurant,” said Kate Lubing, Sam’s sister and, in Sam’s
words, the glue that holds Sun Dog together. “We built another bar kind
of area where that was,” she added, giving the cafè two more feet of
dining space.
They also added a big round table inside and a patio on the south side
of the building with six large picnic tables. And they remodeled the
kitchen.
“We just got some more equipment in there to make it more
efficient and keep up with all the seats we’ve got now,” Sam said.
“We’re continually streamlining the place.”
Check out the new patio, expanded dining section, and tasty food at 57
S. Main St. in Victor, Idaho, Sunday through Wednesday for lunch in
dinner. (208) 787-3354.
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Food News: Sun Dog Deli marks first anniversary with expansion | Planet JH News Article: Restaurants And Dining
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