Chester and Jake's seafood restaurant closed its doors in Bellevue and reopened last week at The Mint on Main Street in Hailey. For restaurateurs Steve and Tanya Hogan, it will mean business as usual. For Hailey, it means a return to the original plans actor Bruce Willis had for the building on 126 S. Main St. when he rebuilt it 13 years ago.
"Bruce took a crappy old bar and turned it into a beautiful restaurant and nightclub," said Chester and Jake's owner Steve Hogan, who will be serving seafood lunches and dinners daily on the ground floor of the building seven days a week.
"In my opinion, until recently, it was beginning to look like a crappy old bar again," he said.
The pub atmosphere of the new Chester and Jake's includes two billiard tables and a V.I.P. darts. The new restaurant and bar, along with the upstairs Mint nightclub, will be non-smoking establishments.
The downstairs décor has been restyled to reflect the fishermen's theme of the new concessionaires; nautical scenes and trophy fish are on display, along with photographs from Alaska's fishing community.
Hogan operated Chester and Jake's in Bellevue in partnership with commercial crab fisherman Mark Scheving for nearly seven years. The two men also sold seafood from the Seattle area to Idaho restaurants. Scheving recently retired from the demanding job of fishing for crab and is in maritime seamanship school on the West Coast.
Hogan and his wife, Tanya, hope to bring The Mint back to the one-stop, eating-and-entertainment location envisioned by Willis years ago. Tanya Hogan is the founder of "Prove It Promotions" and last year brought Windham Hill recording artist Will Ackerman and some of his friends to The Mint for sell-out performances.
Hogan attended culinary school in Portland, Ore., before settling in the Wood River Valley for his internship in 1985 at Epitome Restaurant in Ketchum. In addition to Chester and Jake's, he has worked at Soupcon and the Bullion Street Bistro, and served as executive chef at the Valley Club.
Steve Hogan stands ready to take orders at Chester and Jake’s seafood restaurant, which opened recently at The Mint on Main Street in Hailey.
Photo by David N. Seelig
