Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
DAVENPORT-Yes, this time the grand opening news is real. 6th Street Café and Pizza, a new restaurant aptly located on 6th Street between Morgan and Park Streets, is hosting its grand opening Friday, June 25 at 6:30 a.m.
Owned by a local husband and wife, Ian Riley and Jessica Friedland, the restaurant will feature artisan pizza, gourmet coffee, gourmet ice cream, pastries and beer and wine on tap.
"We think there's very good demand for something good and fresh," Riley said.
Riley and Friedland have lived off Teel Hill Road for two years but have experienced Lincoln County since buying a vacation cabin boat and property in Deer Meadows while regularly residing in Spokane before that.
18 months ago, they bought the building now housed by the restaurant and were not initially sure what to do with it.
"But the community kept asking for a coffee shop or bar," Friedland said. "We wanted to do something relaxed and modern. That's our style."
Once the restaurant idea was in place, the couple made plans to start re-modeling the building. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, so they waited until this year to fully re-model and get the restaurant rolling. The restaurant is in proximity to Highway 2, the high school and City Park, Friedland noted.
"We think the community is really excited," she said.
Six workers have been hired to staff the restaurant.
"We've fallen in love with Davenport. The community has been awesome to us," Friedland said. "It's a tight-knit community that otherwise could be hard to enter, but for the most part, everyone has been very welcoming."
Friedland is a real estate agent who often sells properties in Lincoln County. She said she hopes another restaurant will help draw more people to Davenport, either as residents or tourists, due to the city's proximity to Lake Roosevelt.
"We want to make Davenport a destination," Friedland said. "Really, it could be like Sandpoint (Idaho)."
Sandpoint is located right on Lake Pend Orielle in North Idaho.
Riley has a business-oriented history. An Aussie, he started a fitness business at age 20 in Australia and opened locations in France, Switzerland and the United States. He also owned the Black Pearl casino restaurant in Spokane until last year.
The restaurant features a large map of Davenport in 1894 on its north side that was designed and modernized by Friedland as an ode to the agricultural history of the city.
"It's an old Sanborn fire map," Friedland said. "It shows what used to be here."
In the back of the restaurant lies an open room with more tables and a large flatscreen T.V. that Riley and Friedland plan to rent out for community events like birthday parties, sports watch parties, graduations or yoga instruction.
"The goal is to induce people where people feel inspired to meet together and form ideas to stay in the community," Riley said. "It's time to invigorate the town with people moving out of Spokane and the big cities since COVID and wanting to move to small towns."
6th Street Café and Pizza will be open Monday-Thursday 6:30 a.m.-7 p.m., Friday-Saturday 8 a.m.-10 p.m. and Sunday noon-7 p.m.
Drew Lawson is the editor of the Davenport Times. He is a graduate of Eastern Washington University.
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