S B R A C , W O N O I D R A C R E T A L
OWNER OF CASPER FRY AND DURKIN’S LIQUOR BAR
D
eb Green first perfected her cooking skills by making new dishes for dinner parties with friends and trying to “one-up” herself. It wasn’t long before that interest snowballed into a catering business, followed by managing the cafe at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, and finally opening her first restaurant, Madeleine’s Cafe, in 2007. She now co-owns two other local restaurants with her family, Casper Fry in Spokane’s South Perry District and Durkin’s Liquor Bar downtown, both participating in Inlander Restaurant Week this year.
SUNDAY, MAY 1 REGISTER ONLINE AT
BLOOMSDAYRUN.ORG $28 ENTRY FEE 18 INLANDER RESTAURANT WEEK 2022
VIRTUAL OPTION ALSO AVAILABLE
RESTAURANT WEEK: What is your culinary philosophy? GREEN: My philosophy is to make and serve good food. I believe you don’t need to use dozens of ingredients to make a stellar dish. Good food is also about providing a good environment for diners, one of excellent hospitality. In the end, that’s just as important as the food being served. What kinds of places do you look for when you dine out — what excites you? Our whole family loves to cook and share meals together — we can even get a
bit competitive about it! — so, oftentimes we stay in and cook at home. However, when we do go out, we like to try to support other locally owned places. What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced while operating during the pandemic, and how did you overcome them? The biggest challenge has been the financial aspect. We’re doing well, but we’re still not seeing that same pre-pandemic volume of people coming out to our restaurants, with the exception of Madeleine’s. Many people are still afraid to go out, which I don’t blame them for at all. Another challenge has been being short staffed and having to close when we don’t have the people needed to operate. I currently have only about half the overall staff I used to have, split between the three restaurants. Throughout the pandemic we have tried our best to check in with staff, making sure they were getting the assistance they’re entitled to (unemployment, stimulus checks, etc.) and helped them however we could. The staff who have stuck it out, and our new hires, are all rock stars. They come in to work every day with a good attitude, and we cherish them.
