The Kaniksu hooked community residents with good food, diverse menu

(Recently, there was a picture in your Daily Bee of the Kaniksu Lounge and Dining Room. You were asked to call me if you had ever eaten there. I would like to share with you the story of one person who called from over in Washing-ton. Her name is Marguerite Thompson Olson and she not only ate in the dining room — she ran it. Below is her story, in her own words, with some editing due to space limitations.)

“I went to the Kaniksu in the fall of 1949 and I left in the fall of 1954. I came here from Nebraska during World War II. My husband was in the Air Force and he was stationed at Geiger Field Air Base and I worked at Fairchild Air Base. My husband went overseas and he was gone for three and a half years.

“I had a good government office job at Fairchild and I was being promoted continually. When my husband came back home we went back to Nebraska but we couldn’t get a job. We received a call from a friend who lived in Spokane and we were told that my husband could get a job with the city of Spokane as a surveyor; that is what he did in the service.

“I quit the civil service because they wanted to transfer me to an advanced job but that meant I would have to leave my home in Spokane. Things had not worked out with my husband so I decided I would stay in the area and go in business with a friend who owned the Valley Cocktail Lounge. Before that happened, a friend of mine told me that there was a dining room in Sandpoint that was looking for someone to run it. I decided to take a look at it so I went over to Sandpoint and I knew no one at all. Joe Walker owned the business and he had decided he did not want to try and manage the Kaniksu Motel, the dining room, and the cocktail lounge. I agreed to run the dining room on a percentage basis and I was 29 years old when I took it over.

“When I took the job I had a small amount of cash I had saved and I thought I’d make it or die. I lived in one of the apartments above the Sandpoint Furniture Store that was just down the street from the Kaniksu. That was convenient because we were open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and I worked daily from early in the morning until late at night. I never took a day off until I decided to close on Christmas and New Year’s.

“If you were ever in the Kaniksu Dining Room you will recall that one entrance was from the cocktail lounge and there was another entrance from the outside.  On the far end of the room was a fire place and that whole wall was mirrored. All the other walls were covered with Ross Hall photographs that had been blown up, and they were gorgeous. Ross was a wonderful photographer and he loved his work. The dining room regularly seated 60 people but I recall one time we had a medical convention and I stretched it to seat 101 individuals by using the bar in the lounge as a table.

“I had an article in Sunset Magazine about the Kaniksu Dining Room and the food we served. As you can see, our prices were a little different than the prices of today. Sugar-baked ham with fruit sauce was $2 and this was a complete meal. A complete meal included a salad with a choice of dressing, a shrimp or crab cocktail or tomato juice, bread, coffee or tea, and for desert a choice of home baked pies, ice cream or a chocolate sundae. Old-fashioned chicken with steamed dumplings with complete meal cost $1.85. We had fish fries on Friday and people were lined up to the end of the block. It was all you could eat for one dollar. We charged more for our large serving of roast prime rib of beef, which was also a complete meal; it cost $2.25. A fried chicken dinner, a complete meal, was $2.00. A one pound filet mignon was special and it cost $4.75 for the complete meal.

To be continued