Eichardt's turns 21 in style

SANDPOINT — In just a few days, a local landmark will celebrate a milestone birthday. That’s when Eichardt’s Pub Grill & Coffee House turns the ripe, old age of 21.

“The pub will be legal,” said Jeff Nizzoli, who opened the business with local musician, luthier and custom ski builder David Marx in 1994. Marx oversaw the coffeehouse upstairs in the morning, while Nizzoli took the moniker of “publican” and handled the job of pulling taps downstairs at night.

In that pre-espresso era of Sandpoint history, the coffeehouse concept proved to be before its time and Marx went on to pursue other interests, including the formation of 7B Skis and, more recently, building custom musical instruments.

Eichardt’s, meanwhile, kept the full name intact, partly because Nizzoli liked the sound of it.

The popular pub menu followed quickly as “Sandpoint showed us they wanted good food, too,” he said.

The kitchen’s offerings have changed over the years as eating habits gravitated toward more healthy menu selections. One mainstay has been Eichardt’s regionally famous garlic fries — an explosion of flavor that acts like a magnet when former residents return home for a visit. It has been said that the pub usually sees these travelers before their family members even know they’re in town, as they first stop for garlic fries and a cold one.

“I’ve been told that,” said Nizzoli. “People come here and they find comfort in the fact that Eichardt’s has changed so little over the years, compared to Sandpoint.

“And I’ve been here long enough now that the children I met 20 years ago are now coming in with their own children,” the publican added.

Eichardt’s eye toward tradition started early, according to Nizzoli, who credits the pub’s lively music scene as a hefty contribution to its longevity. Originally known as the Donkey Jaw, the establishment changed hands and handed over an artist that Nizzoli realized would be an “inroad to local music.”

“Truck Mills was here before we were,” he said. “He was hosting the Monday Night Blues Jam when we got here.”

While most venues feature live music on weekends — Eichardt’s does that, too — the pub turned weeknights into something special, balancing Mills’ still-active Monday session with Wednesday night music by singer-songwriter Charley Packard and his band. Packard’s tenure on the pub stage has been extensive enough that Nizzoli can’t quite put his finger on when the singer started.

“I think Charley has been playing here for at least 10 years,” he said. “But that’s just a guess.

“We’ve had live music two or three days a week the whole time,” Nizzoli added. “If it’s authentic, if it’s real music, if the people playing it are passionate about it, then bring it.”

In an environment that so prides itself on culinary and cultural consistency, it’s notable that the biggest changes at Eichardt’s over the past couple of decades have to do with the beer it serves. The pub started out with 10 craft beers on tap, out of approximately 40 breweries it had to choose from at the time.

“Now, there’s probably 800 breweries, and we’re older than most of them,” said the publican, adding that he rotates new beers in and out every few days. “Obviously, good beer is one of our passions. Our philosophy is: If you’re going to drink here all the time, you might as well try different beers all the time.”

Styles of beer run from the darker side — stouts and brown ales — to ambers, IPAs, pale ales, blondes and pilsners.

“People’s knowledge of beer has changed over the past 20 years and the IPAs are the most popular anymore,” Nizzoli said. “It’s a product of where we live and the availability of hops here in the Pacific Northwest.”

Now employing 20 people on a full- and part-time basis, Eichardt’s is the manifestation of a dream that began during Nizzoli’s travels through England, Australia and New Zealand, where he learned that the pub was the true community center in the towns he visited.

“That’s where I fell in love with the idea of pubs,” he said. “People went there when times were good and when they were bad, to meet their friends and to share news.

“This is a great town to run a pub in.”

Eichardt’s Pub Grill & Coffee House, located at 212 Cedar St., is open seven days a week at 11:30 a.m. The kitchen closes at 10 p.m. and “the pub stays open until everyone’s done,” Nizzoli said.