A New Restaurant
Rumors were flying as Spring turned into Summer (or breakup turned to rain) about a new restaurant. A Snow City Midtown? Something about Hogg Brother’s Café? The truth is out—Laile, JoAnn from Sack’s and a group of investors have purchased what was Hogg Brother’s Café on Northern Lights and Spenard. In November it will reopen as the Spenard Roadhouse—a lunch and dinner spot with a full bar, great burgers and pizzas along with grilled Alaskan fish and roasted veggies from the Mat-Su Valley. We hope you’re looking forward to this place as much as we are. Finally, a new place to eat when Snow City closes its doors in the afternoons! Drinks anyone?

Block Party
This year’s neighborhood block party and ACVB Evening Exchange was a blast with awesome live music by Nervis Rex, dancing, a margarita tent (courtesy of Simon and Seaforts), burgers and hot dogs, and face painting and crazy hair styling for the kids. And most excitingly…it didn’t rain! The clouds parted for a few hours (in the midst of rainy weeks) and we saw blue sky and danced under the sun.  Our 6th Annual West End Block Party was sponsored by Snow City Café, Simon & Seafort’s, The Hotel Captain Cook, and PangoMedia.

Staff picnic/kickball
To celebrate all of our hard work (pat on the back) we met in Valley of the Moon park for a game of Kick Ball with family and friends and a lot of good grub. Trust the Snow City crew to come up with some tasty food (and to know how to eat too!). Natalie, our head chef showed up with her new baby girl, Jillian, and Allison, four years. We took a picture of the whole crew to send back with a dishwasher from Russia who’s been working here this summer. I think the adults enjoyed the kick ball as much as the kids (probably more) though the competition was fierce.

Snow City 5K
The excitement continued into August with the Big Wild Run. This year Snow City hosted the 5K. We cheered our runners (and all the others) on as they bolted past Snow City and on to glory. And we felt just a little guilty for eating a Heart Attack on a Plate as we cheered—but not guilty enough to stop eating.

The latest news is that, once again, Snow City has won the coveted title of Anchorage Daily News Best Brunch! Thanks to all of our loyal fans for voting for us. We await the Press Picks results with anticipation.

Well, as my dad would say, “That’s the news from Lake Woebegone” (which makes significantly more sense if you’re from MN and/or a fan of Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion Show). So be well, do good work, and keep in touch,
Tasia Jelatis-Hoke

p.s. pictures of the aforementioned joys of summer to come…

Appetizer choices
• Roasted Red Pepper, Garlic and Chevre on Baguette
• Rustic Squash Tarts
• Wild Mushroom Risotto with Seared Scallops

Salad/Soup choices
• Spinach Salad with bleu cheese crumbles, almonds, dried cranberries, and raspberry vinaigrette
• Mixed Organic Greens tossed with grape tomatoes, foccacia croutons and balsamic vinaigrette
• Seafood Chowder

Entrée choices
• Polenta with Roasted Winter Vegetables and Jus
• Ciopinno with prawns, scallops, crab, cod, and clams in tomato, basil, and pepper broth and a polenta crouton.
• Roasted Chicken Breast with Leek and Fresh Herb Stuffing served with au gratin potatoes and roasted asparagus
• Pork Loin Medallions topped with greens and crispy shallots in a whole grain mustard sauce served with au gratin potatoes and roasted asparagus

Dessert

Three choices to be determined

Kids’ Menu

Appetizer choices
• Homemade Soup
• Cold Veggie Platter

Entrée choices
• Grilled Cheese Sandwich
• Homemade Crispy Chicken Strips
• Macaroni & Cheese

Dessert

In response to the random shootings that happened last December, Snow City Cafe is hosting a benefit dinner on Thursday, February 14, Valentine’s Day.  All proceeds will be donated to Elizabeth Rumsey, Tamas Deak and the Jason Wenger Memorial Writing Award.  Our staff is also donating their time and tips.

There will be two seatings – 5:30 PM and 7 PM.  $40 for adults, $10 for kids.  Very kid-friendly, family event.

The special 4-course menu will be announced on our website on January 31.

Make your reservations by calling 272-3239 or e-mail Melissa@snowcitycafe.com.  We have 100 spots to fill for each seating.

We close off the block between 4th Avenue and L Street—you’ll see the tents, stage and balloons!  Hector and El Combo Tropicale Latino will be playing.  Free parking in the Captain Cook Parking Garage.

Our Call Ahead Wait List system seems to be working but it still causes aggravation for some people.  This is how it works—you call ahead and we put you on our waiting list.  We try and give you an estimate for how long it’s taking for people to be seated so that you know when to come in.  Once you come in, you check in with the hostess and we’ll give you a pager.  If we’ve estimated correctly and you’ve shown up when we told you, you will most likely be seated within 10 - 15 minutes.  Sometimes our estimates are wrong (people are sitting longer than we anticipated or we got a sudden surge of people come in) and sometimes people show up earlier than we estimated.  So it’s not an exact science but it does work most of the time.  Try it next weekend!  (Call 272-3233 instead of 272-2489 if you want to avoid the long automated voice message.) It’s usually not necessary to call ahead during the week, only weekends, but starting in May it will probably be busy enough, so call ahead Mon - Fri too.  Waits for a table were about 45 minutes this weekend.  Worth the wait, I promise!

Well it’s 7:11 PM.  Time to head home.  Fun while it lasted but I’m ready to go back to Mon - Fri for awhile.  —Laile

So here’s what’s happening this week...this Friday, 4/6, is the Art Gallery Walk.  We’ll be featuring the work of Julie Bourbeau.  She does some really cool mixed media, which includes painted aluminum, to make brightly colored fish wall hangings.  The show is 5:30 - 8 PM and we’ll have appetizers so come on out.  Also, every Wednesday night, the Irish musicians and dancers come to the cafe for Traditional Irish Music Sessions.  We had some great posters made by MadDog Graphx to start promoting this event again.  We haven’t done any advertising in years and the usuals that come every Wednesday want to see some new faces so come on down!

Next Sunday is Easter.  This is a great day to come to the cafe because we are typically not very busy.  Everybody likes to go to the big fancy champagne brunches and we end up kind of slow.  The servers are planning on wearing flowery dresses and bonnets just for fun (they like to dress up every so often—last time was Pajama Day).  I think we’re having some Easter specials, I’ll know for sure later today, and we have a new champagne drink that the staff loves—the Snow City Royale—Odwalla Pomogranite Juice, champagne and raspberry crumbles.  Yum City!

Well, I’ve got to get back to work.  This is my first blog ever.  Be kind. —Laile