Vicki Clarke – general manager

Lumberyard Rotisserie & Grill

264 East Third St., Cannon Beach

In the heart of downtown Cannon Beach is the Lumberyard Rotisserie & Grill, a restaurant complete with pub fare, pizzas and a sizable bar area ready for watching sports. The epic burger is one of the restaurants specialties. The Lumberyard is open from noon to 9 p.m. Thursday, Sunday and Monday and noon to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday it is closed Tuesday and Wednesday. For more information, call 503-436-0285 or visit www.thelumberyardgrill.com

What do you do?

I run the ship. The Lumberyard restaurant provides a great level of hospitality to guests who are visiting Cannon Beach. In the Martin Hospitality Group, we have three restaurants. We have the Stephanie Inn, which is wonderful fine dining; we have the Wayfarer, which is casual fine dining; and then we have the Lumberyard, which I think of as funny dining. We love pets on the patio. We like to have kids in here. Its loud, its crazy, its pizza and burgers, its beer. So we try to have cross sections (so) theres a place for everyone to come to.

How did you get started doing this?

I worked for Martin Hospitality about seven years ago maybe eight years ago in their catering department. I was the catering operations manager at Surfsand (Resort), and then I moved down south for several years and worked in construction with my husband. When I came back up here after business went bust down south, they (Martin Hospitality) were the first company I called this is a great company to work for. Theyre always looking for people who are family oriented, have a good time, get along with other people.

What is the volume of your business?

Im comfortable saying that we did a remodel in May of this year. So we added 110 seats to the restaurant. With the patio, I now seat 275 guests thats huge for Cannon Beach. Every Friday and Saturday, and most of the summer, we would have a wait list every night for dinner that would stretch for an hour, an hour and a half. Weve kind of blown the doors off this year for sales generated, which is really good. Unfortunately, some of that bump came from Dooger’s closing down here in Cannon Beach, because they were another family restaurant that was middle-of-the-road.

How has the economy affected your business?

Since I got here, the first two years were really, really rough. The economy was impacting all of Cannon Beach, I would say. Business owners come in here, and we discuss whats going on. And I think this year, were really seeing a turnaround. Were seeing more and more people come to the coast. If theyre not coming to spend their dollars in the lodging industry, theyre coming for day trips to enjoy the beach, the weather and prospering all the smaller businesses Bruces Candy Kitchen, ourselves, the (Cannon Beach) Treasure Company, Seasons Cafe. All the little businesses are noticing a big upturn in the volume of people who are coming to the coast.

Edward Stratton