The historic Roundhouse restaurant, located midway up Bald Mountain, has gone through a facelift between winter seasons, resulting in a renovated dining hall, heated cement stairs and the most notable alteration of all, a new bar dubbed Averell's.
The beer and wine bar was named after diplomat and former governor of New York W. Averell Harriman, who founded Sun Valley Resort and built Roundhouse in 1939 when he was chairman of the board of Union Pacific Railroad.
The bar didn't require construction of an addition but merely cleaning the former Averell's Restaurant, which hasn't seen a customer for years. Sun Valley Resort spokesman Jack Sibbach said the downstairs room, with its wall of panoramic windows, has been used for storage. Not many people know it even exists.
He said that when it was a restaurant, it was the fine-dining destination with the upstairs room being a cafeteria. He said that when the cafeteria took the fine-dining role, Averell's Restaurant fell by the wayside.
But, he said, the new gondola presented the opportunity for a beer and wine bar that will be open from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., offering food like gravlax (cured salmon), a cheese platter and "crepes au fromage."
With the gondola streaming in foot traffic from 2,000 feet below, Sibbach said, the resort predicts Roundhouse crowds to increase. And with the restaurant not taking lunch reservations, customers can have a drink while waiting.
The gondola also allows the Roundhouse to start offering the First Tracks Continental Breakfast starting at 8 a.m.
"At 9 a.m. sharp, the First Tracks skiers and boarders will be the first on the slopes," Sibbach said.
Sun Valley Resort originally planned on offering dinner at the Roundhouse this season, but the U.S. Forest Service put a damper on those plans. Sibbach said the Americans with Disabilities Act requires Roundhouse to provide handicapped access and handicap-accessible bathrooms if it wants to open to the public for dinner.
"That's what the Forest Service is telling us," he said. "Architects are looking at it right now."
Sibbach said these architects would present options and costs to the resort after their evaluation.
Still, people can book the Roundhouse for private dinner functions. But, Sibbach said, that wouldn't come cheap.
Trevon Milliard: tmilliard@mtexpress.com
Sun Valley Resort spokesman Jack Sibbach stands in the renovated Averell’s Bar, scheduled to open tomorrow in the Roundhouse.
Photo by David N. Seelig
