Santé owner to open downtown bakery

 Santé Restaurant & Charcuterie owner Jeremy Hansen plans this fall to open Common Crumb LLC, a new bakery and chocolatier, in the Saranac Commons building at 19 W. Main downtown. 

Hansen says Common Crumb will offer artisan breads, pastries, desserts, and the occasional specialty order cake, as well as chocolate made in-house.

“Artisan bread’s our main focus but we’ll be doing a lot of pastry and desserts,” Hansen says. “We’ll also be selling breads to restaurants.”

Of the 1,300 square foot space at 19 W. Main, about 1,000 square feet will be occupied by the production area. Part of that space will be devoted to a chocolatier.

Common Crumb plans to employ about 10 people, but Hansen says that number will depend on how many restaurants the bakery serves and whether or not Common Crumb grows popular enough to bake 24 hours a day. While bread-making operations are moving from Santé to Common Crumb, Santé will continue to provide Common Crumb products.

Hansen expects Common Crumb to open in late October. The bakery originally was set to open in July after renovations were completed, but roofing concerns caused the anticipated opening to be pushed back. 

Other businesses in the building will include Black Label Brewing Co., Sun People Dry Goods, Italian espresso bar Caffé Affogato, and Mediterrano restaurant. The building formerly housed Merlyn’s comic book shop, until Merlyn’s moved next door last winter.

—Virginia Thomas

Mexican restaurant sets table in Valley

La Plaza de Mexico, a new family Mexican restaurant, is scheduled to open this month at 9420 E. Sprague, in Spokane Valley, says Carol Navarrete, the restaurant’s manager.

The restaurant has leased a 2,400-square-foot stand-alone building formerly occupied by Los Tacos Tumbras.

La Plaza de Mexico will serve lunch and dinner. Navarrete says the menu is under final revisions in preparation for the restaurant opening, and she anticipates that lunch combinations will be priced around $10 and dinner combinations up to around $12.

Navarrete says the restaurant will have a seating capacity of 86 customers and will employ about 10 members of her extended family.

Commercial real estate agents Jody Johnson and Chris Bell, both of Spokane-based NAI Black, handled the lease.

 

—Mike McLean

Leisure pursuit shop moves to nearby site

M&J Hobbies Inc., the Spokane franchisee of Lincoln, Neb.-based HobbyTown USA, has moved to a larger space at 9632 Newport Highway in the Northpointe Plaza, about a block and a half from its original location, says co-owner June Hobson. 

Hobson, who owns the 10-year-old retail store with her husband, Matt, says the company now occupies 9,000 square feet of leased space, up from the 8,500 square feet of space it had at 9324 N. Division.

The company decided to move the store because the lease on the original space was up, and they couldn’t come to an agreement with the owner of the building on a new lease, Hobson says. 

HobbyTown carries doll houses, metal detectors, remote-controlled airplanes, a wide range of games and models, and robots, among other products, she says. It has two gaming-activity areas in the new store, up from one in the former location.

One of the gaming areas is for games that are played standing up, Hobson says, and the other has tables and chairs for sitting games. 

The Hobsons also hired four additional employees with the move to give it a total of 10 workers, she says, and currently is looking for another. 

“Also, it’s a bigger store, so we’re looking to expand our inventory,” Hobson says. 

 

—Katie Ross

New auto auction  opens in Post Falls

Cameron Jones, formerly a wildland firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service, has opened Post Falls Auto Auction at 1094 N. McGuire Road, in Post Falls. 

Jones, who spent the last 10 years in Montana fighting fires, had bought an auto-auction business in Nampa, Idaho, in April, called Truck & Auto Auction. After he established a manager for that site, he decided to open Post Falls Auto Auction, in Post Falls.  

Jones says as a kid growing up, his best friend’s dad owned a big auto auction near Seattle where he spent time “hanging out and helping out,” which he says motivated him to start the new business. 

Post Falls Auto Auction charges both the seller and the buyers to place a vehicle in the auction. Sellers pay a flat fee of $85, and buyers pay a fee of 10 percent of a vehicle’s final sale price. 

The auction accepts vehicles that are “decent running,” he says. “We don’t want any junkers.”

Auctions are held on one or two Saturdays per month with preview days on Thursday and Friday on auctions weeks. Vehicles must be registered before closing on Wednesday prior to auctions on Saturday. A calendar of upcoming auctions is posted on the business website at http://www.postfallsautoauction.com/.

—Judith Spitzer

Chaps owner opens vintage retail shop

Lucky Detour is open for business. No, it’s not the name of a new casino, it’s a new vintage home décor store located in Vinegar Flats, opened last week by Chaps Restaurant & Bakery owner Celeste Shaw. 

Located at 1930 S. Inland Empire Way in a 1,500-square-foot former filling station, the new store will carry vintage, repurposed, and new reproductions in décor and furniture for home and garden, Shaw says.

Shaw likens the business to a “baby Anthropologie store,” with products such as vintage linens, industrial furniture, antiques and new shabby chic products, she says referring to the international clothing and home retailer owned by Philadelphia-based Urban Outfitters.

Shaw says she’s spent the last three years completely refurbishing the building. 

Chaps Restaurant, which is decorated with vintage furniture and décor, is located at 4237 S. Cheney Spokane Road, off of Highway 195. 

—Judith Spitzer