If the Echo Lake Cafe is looking for a motto, “nothing succeeds like success” would be more than apt.

“I saw the line out the door and thought we should stop by,” is the kind of comment owners Bob and Christi Young hear regularly.

The cafe on Montana 83, located a few miles east of the junction with Montana 35, has been an extremely popular breakfast and lunch destination, with nonstop tourist traffic in the summer and loyal local patrons the rest of the year, since the Youngs took over as owners in 1999.

On their busiest summer days,  the Echo Lake Cafe will seat as many as 500 customers at its 100-plus seats, with 63 inside and 40 on the deck, from 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

The Youngs have tried to keep customers happy while they wait for tables, creating a putt-putt course on the well-groomed front lawn and supplying outdoor seating in the shade.

“I wish we could hire a juggler or something,” Bob said. “I don’t ever want them to leave.”

They estimate that more than 80 percent of Echo Lake Cafe customers in July and August are tourists, with locals filling tables the rest of the year. “Locals” means people from throughout the Flathead Valley, as well as Bigfork. One couple from Lakeside vowed to eat at the restaurant once a day for a calendar year, and once that year was up, they continued to show up.  

Bob said he and Christi’s approach is to take basic food and elevate it a notch above the ordinary. It has been a winning philosophy — the Echo Lake Cafe was voted as having the best breakfast in the Daily Inter Lake “Best of the Flathead” readers poll seven of nine years since 2004, including 2012.

The menu is extensive, with omelets, eggs Benedict variations and pancakes for breakfast, and a variety of sandwiches and salads for lunch. The only two items on the menu over $10 both include smoked salmon. Except for sandwich breads, most of their baked goods are created in-house.

“People like to bring their out-of-town friends here, because they know the food will be right,” Christi said. “They won’t ever have to send it back or complain.”

The Youngs, who also own a successful restaurant in Lake Tahoe called the Firesign Cafe, believe their obsession with detail and consistency are the reasons they have succeeded in the difficult restaurant business.

“We don’t take shortcuts, ever,” Bob said. “I am always making sure the staff puts food out the way we want it.

“I can tell things, like if the salad dressing is too thin, or if the kitchen has changed our hamburgers. If they mess up anything or change anything I know.”

Details that might not even occur to the average restaurant patron don’t escape the Youngs. They’ve been appalled to see servers in other restaurants distributing glasses and cutlery from the top. Even the pouring habits of wait staff are subject to the Youngs’ scrutiny.

“Certain things can never happen here,” Bob said. “You can’t take the pitcher and let it rest on the edge of one glass while you’re pouring, and then let it rest on the edge of another glass.

“Those are the little details you have to drill into their [the staff’s] heads.”

Despite their high expectations, Bob said he and Christi are not micromanagers. They have had the same kitchen manager, Tom McDougall, and front-end manager, Debra Hunt, since they opened, and they trust them completely to take care of their respective staffs.

“I usually just try to stay out of the way,” Bob said.  

Shopping is one of the Youngs’ biggest responsibilities; Bob does much of the facility maintenance and the accounting work, while Christi focuses on the decorating and landscaping.

The Youngs have owned their Lake Tahoe restaurant since 1980, and the Echo Lake Cafe, in menu and decor, is modeled on that successful establishment. Both have been family endeavors, with the Youngs’ three grown children spending much of their childhood and earning work experience in the restaurants.

Bob and Christi first moved to Montana in part to escape the day-to-day work of the restaurant business, but were charmed by the Echo Lake Cafe location and in 1996 purchased the building. They leased out the property to others for a few years, but as the business was struggling, the Youngs decided to dive in and save the establishment.

They did extensive remodeling of the facility, which was built in 1960. They added space and fixed severe structural defects while maintaining most of the original woodwork and lodge-like Montana feel.

“It was in bad shape,” Christi said. “It was a tired old building.”

The restaurant reopened in 1999, starting off at a fast pace with no slowing down since.

The first year was brutal; it was tough to open a restaurant with a startup staff, Bob said. The chemistry of a restaurant crew is crucial to its success, and after being so comfortable with their Lake Tahoe personnel, breaking in new people wasn’t easy.

“We went through many people that first year,” he said. “A cook’s job especially is very stressful; it was very easy for a cook to have a bad day and quit, especially in the summer when we were slammed.

“We lost three cooks that first week. They had never worked in a place that got so crazy so quickly.”

Now that they have a loyal, solid group of servers and cooks, hiring new people is much easier. They trust the staff to tell them who’s going to be worth keeping.

Expectations are high for all employees, which number around 35 in the summer and 20 in the winter. The staff is expected to be attuned to details beyond the food. Establishing eye contact with every customer as they enter is crucial; so are details such as the loudness of the music or the temperature of the building.

“You don’t walk past tables with blinkers on, even if they’re not yours. If you see customers with their coats on, turn the heat up. It’s not just about you and your five tables.”

Reporter Heidi Gaiser may be reached at 758-4439 or by email at hgaiser@dailyinterlake.com.