Bairs plan new Main Street restaurant in Lovell

It’s been the talk of the town for a week – ever since three excavators started tearing down the Hal Price building on the northwest corner of Main and Nevada in Lovell last Wednesday, Jan. 3.
Something big was happening.
Word soon got around that Devin and Stacy Bair were tearing down the Price building in order to building something brand new – a top-quality restaurant with an appeal to families: The Overlook.
It’s something the Bairs have been thinking about for years, said Stacy Bair in a Tuesday interview, and now that ground has been broken, she said she could provide some information about the project that’s been on everybody’s mind.
“We’re still working out details, and it’s in the very, very early stages of the process,” she said. “But just the reaction we’ve got from people, just hearing that we might be getting something, I’m just surprised or shocked … I didn’t think it would create quite the commotion that it seems to have made, so in light of that I think I would just like to share as much of the process as we can so people can make the journey with us.”
Part of the impetus for the project was doing something for the town after Minchow’s Food Court closed in 2022, Bair said.
“When Minchow’s closed, I think like everybody else in town, we felt the void, not only just from the service it provided, but as a place where our kids could go hang out,” Bair said. “We kind of lost a big social opportunity in addition to the food. I think like every other person in town, we’ve been waiting to see if something would fill that gap.
“It wasn’t necessarily something we were dying to do. In fact, there was a rumor that El Tapatio was going to come to Lovell, and we got super excited about that and actually met with the people from El Tap and showed them some equipment we had from the Oasis (recently purchased by the Bairs). We said, ‘If there’s anything we can do to help you to bring Mexican food to Lovell, we would be willing to do it.’ And ultimately, they decided they didn’t want to do anything in Lovell.”
Instead, the Bairs took the plunge.
“I’m a big proponent for economic development, and I love Lovell as much as anybody else does, and I just felt like, with this void in a good food gathering place, it could have been a turn in the wrong direction for Lovell,” Stacy said. “If someone didn’t do something that would somewhat replace what we had in Minchow’s, the town could become more stagnant. We’ve just been waiting for somebody to do something, and it just never happened, so we finally decided, as much as we don’t necessarily want to be in the restaurant business, I feel like it could be a really good thing for the town. So we decided one way or another to get actively involved in solving the problem.”
Bair believes that gathering places are important for a community.
“I just felt like, the way online shopping is, we don’t have these brick-and-mortar outlets to get out of the house or be social. I think in all small towns, food is the one place where we can see each other and get out of the house. I think it’s super important to have multiple choices.”
Bair said she and Devin looked at a variety of properties in town, calling the process “a bit of an odyssey.” After looking at a few, the Bairs purchased the Price building at 187 East Main.
“I think they really understood the vision. The Prices were so good to work with,” she said. “We’re excited about it, and I think they kind of got behind the project. The location ended up being the perfect spot for it. It was, I would say, serendipity that all of the other places didn’t work out.”
Before razing the building, the Bairs had their architect look at whether the existing building could be retrofitted as a restaurant or whether it would be better to demolish the building and start new. They settled on the latter.
The building had contained a variety of businesses over the years including a Woolworth’s, Ben Franklin store, Rocky’s dime store, Best Buy Auto and Lovell Car Clinic. The adjacent lot to the east held a service station, torn down years ago. Bair said the Price family owned the building for some 30 years.
The restaurant
Bair said the vision for the restaurant is that one portion will be for family dining, and another portion will be a lounge. Space will be provided for groups, as well.
As envisioned by the Bairs and their architect, the west portion of the building will be two stories, matching the look of the Main Street buildings on the rest of the block, then continue east in more of a contemporary fashion.
“Kind of a marriage of the old and new,” Bair said.
The menu will likely feature American food, she said, but right now the focus is on “making it a space people will want to be in, and then after we’ll start to focus on the menu.” The business will have a restaurant liquor license.
“We’re trying to be super conscious that staffing is an issue, so every development in the business model has staffing in mind,” Bair added. “It could be unique in the way ordering is done or food is served.
“We’re going to really strive to have an environment that is fun, a place where our teenagers would like to work. A lot of that is the culture set by the management. We’re going to try our best to do it right. I’m nervous, because everybody eats, so everybody is an expert on what we should have.”
The next step is further architectural work and site preparation.
“We’re waiting for the architects to get far enough through the design process that we can do the civil work (dirt work and site preparation),” Bair said. “It might be optimistic, but we’re not completely giving up on a December or year-end 2024 opening.”
“I’ve done a lot of projects, and I’ve never been more excited about one. It’s easily the most financially irresponsible project we’ve ever done, but I’ve never been more excited about one.”
The restaurant will be called The Overlook, drawing attention to tourism and referring to Devil’s Canyon Overlook.
“We hope that throughout the décor and maybe even the menu we can theme it around our tourism and even just our local culture,” she said. “We had an idea to do a mocktail, a non-alcoholic drink, called the Blue Lady. That’s what’s nice about not having a franchise. It gives us all this creative freedom to make it 100 percent Lovell.”