Those sublime avocado melts are back. Ditto the wheat-gluten-free muffins and the familiarly holistic menu. Middle Way Cafe has reopened on Northern Lights Boulevard, a few doors down in the same Spenard mall. We dropped in to check out the big new space and chat with owner Jonathan Campabello recently.
Q. It seems like you reopened pretty quietly ... ?
A. It was a very soft opening -- on Jan. 25, a Friday. No announcement, no sign out, serving maybe half of our menu. But word had gotten around to some of our regulars, and we had a surprising first day. We did it in steps, but by Day 3 we were serving the full menu.
Q. How long were you closed?
A. About three months. It was supposed to be two to three weeks, but there were construction delays, and we're still finishing up a lot of things.
Q. What's physically different?
A. Since 1994 we'd been in a small space next to REI. Middle Way was the first restaurant of its kind in Anchorage, and really developed a life of its own. The place was packed, tight, busy. A hole in the wall, with tasty, health-conscious food.
It was an intimate, great little space that pulsed with the life of the community, but I think we wore it out.
Now we have three times the square-footage, from 1,300 to about 4,000. We also have (an) entrance to the mall from the Benson (Boulevard) side and a deck on the south side. That's still coming together, but we'll have that open when the weather warms up. I think we've got a little time on that.
The capacity is up from 65 to 104, plus the outdoor seating in spring. We've still got some tables to add, so we're not at full capacity yet.
Q. What's new food-wise?
A. We reopened with the exact menu we had before, and now it will grow, too.
What people won't see that makes the biggest difference is the full kitchen: In the old space, we depended on a convection oven and what amounted to souped-up crock pots and a sandwich line. Now we have a grill, which means we can start doing hot breakfasts soon. We're experimenting now and should be online with that in a few weeks.
We've hired Jacob Davis as our new chef and kitchen manager, and he'll have a real impact this spring. He comes to us from the Bear Tooth, where he was kitchen manager, and he's also well-known here as a commercial fisherman and a metal artist. His experience with fish will be evident on the menu, with salmon salads and other items this spring. Salmon is healthy and delicious, loaded with protein and healthy oils. You can do a lot with it. He's got lots of ideas.
We've always had a three-pronged approach to food: traditional cafe, vegan and wheat-gluten-free. We'll expand all three, with a lot of our own in-house recipes, especially for bakery items.
Q. Did you worry about changing a formula that was successful?
A. Constantly. We had to protect and nurture the aspects of Middle Way that people loved -- keeping that warmth and coziness and sense of community. The last thing we wanted was to make a big but cold, uninviting space.
So the design really hearkens back to the old: with birch counters and warm colors. We dropped the lights to an intimate level and reused some of our old furniture and the menu boards.
We wanted some home-grown touches. We built benches ourselves and hired a local cabinetmaker.
Jim and Liz Vermillion of Concrete Polishing and Artistic Staining of Alaska came in and -- from a wasteland of old, cracked concrete -- created really beautiful concrete floors, including a tree-of-life design at the front entrance.
Q. Why change?
A. The renovation of the mall gave us a chance to grow, reinvent, design our own space. And we really had to: REI expanded into our old space, and the mall management wanted to add more food service options.
So we needed to offer more than zeitgeist to stay competitive: more food, more comfort. It's a work in progress.
Q. What's left to do?
A. A sound system, so you can hear when your order is ready no matter where you're sitting. More lighting. Finish the bench seating. Get more tables in.
Q. Almost three months is a long time to be closed. What was your staff doing?
A. We kept our core group of seven or eight people on the payroll the whole time. Their job descriptions were, um, flexible: We had cooks putting in cabinets, installing lights, building walls, painting furniture. ... About two weeks ago we started hiring again, so we've doubled the staff size now that we're open.
And everybody's training on the fly.
Q. What's next?
A. We hosted First Friday at Middle Way -- it was exciting to bring in local artists and show their work and give them some wall space. We'll rotate the art every 60 days or so.
The expanded "living space" here means we can start having live music at some point and serve light dinners. Before, we just needed all of the seating we could get. So art and music wasn't regular, just occasional shows.
Q. What's the most striking change?
A. The southern exposure -- letting daylight into the space from both front and back makes a dramatic difference even in winter. Without that, we'd have a long narrow passage -- a cave.
• Play dining reviewer Mike Peters can be reached at mpeters@adn.com.
Middle Way Cafe
Location: 1200 W. Northern Lights Blvd.
Cafe hours: 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday; 8 a.m. to 5:30 Saturday and Sunday.
Kitchen hours: 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily.
Phone: 272-6433
Web: middlewaycafe.com
By Mike Peters
mpeters@adn.com