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Wednesday,February24,2021
Columbia Gorge News
www.columbiagorgenews.com
GORGE LOCAL — IN BUSINESS
Landmark changes hands
Maccabees
purchase
Horsefeathers,
Orzecks look
back on 32 years
in business
in a stream of challenges,”
Susan said, Randy adding,
“Starting or rebuilding at this
time? It was a huge financial
and emotional challenge.”
The aftermath of the
Horsefeathers fire was as
traumatic as the fire itself,
between protracted discus-
By Kirby Neumann-Rea
Columbia Gorge News
sions with the insurance
company over a damage
An iconic downtown Hood settlement (concluded in
November 2020) and the
River building has changed
challenges of working with
hands.
the city on how to redevelop
Dr. Mendy Maccabee
the building, which proved
and her husband, Dr. David
costlier and more complex
Maccabee, have purchased
than the Orzecks felt was
the former Big Horse
worth pursuing.
Brewery/Horsefeathers
While acknowledging
building from Randy and
the obstacles they faced on
Susan Orzeck.
insurance and municipal
Mendy Maccabee said
current plans are to turn the fronts for the 16 after the
fire, the Orzecks said they
long-time restaurant into
choose to look at the posi-
housing. Because of chal-
lenges meeting city require-
tives of the time Big Horse/
Horsefeathers was an anchor
ments, the Maccabbees will
not use the building for their business downtown.
“You can’t control what
clinic, as they had originally
happens in life as much as
planned.
you’d like to. The fire was
The Orzecks transformed
the building into a successful traumatic,” Randy said. “The
restaurant and later brewery whole thing was rough, but
for 32 years before fire closed in the end, the way I look at it
is there is no point in looking
it in May 2019.
back. We are where we are,
“It’s been our life. I can
and we’re done.”
only imagine we’ve em-
“And it feels great,” Susan
ployed 600-800 people over
said.
the years, and so many of
What started as mid-scale
them remain our friends,”
bistro dining restaurant
Susan said.
transformed into a brew
“The coolest thing is
anywhere I go on this planet, pub with live music, shelves
filled with books, a couple of
anyone you mention to
you’re from Hood River, they screens for watching sports,
think of this building,” Randy and a casual atmosphere
with an awesome view.
said.
The Orzecks, who now live Randy recalled the early days
in 1988 when downtown was
in White Salmon, decided
dead, and standing at the
to sell in September 2020,
window watching headlights
retiring early and abandon-
turn onto Second Street from
ing their plans to reopen
the Interstate, and hoping
the restaurant, after a year
that car might be headed to
of negotiations with their
insurance company and the the restaurant to eat.
After the fire the Orzecks
City of Hood River. After the
started improvements in
fire, the Orzecks figured on
early 2020 with the idea of
six-eight months before fin-
turning the patio area into an
ishing repairs and upgrades
needed to reopen. Insurance outdoor-only dining area, but
haggling and unexpected re- those plans ran into compli-
quirements by the city meant cations as well. The patio —
abutting the popular Second
delays and cost increases.
Street stairs and overlooking
And then the coronavirus
Stratton Park — had long
happened.
been a gathering place and a
“It was another challenge
■
Randy and Susan Orzeck, at top, stand where the Horsefeathers
Bar used to be in a September 2020 photo. The interior was gut-
ted following the May 2019 fire and the restaurateurs decided to
abandon efforts to redevelop the property and sell the building.
Crews worked on the roof, at right, and added a new second-story
deck.
Kirby Neumann-Rea photos
wedding and event venue.
“It was a real homey type
of environment where people
could come and celebrate,”
Susan said.
Asked when the restaurant
hit its stride after the sparse
first few years, Randy said,
“The year we put in the brew-
ery,” 1994. After Full Sail, it
was the second one in Hood
River County. Justa Pasta had
occuped the ground-floor
space before the Orzecks
added the brewery. (Randy
was the first brewer)
“We had some people who
were kind of mad, they’d say,
‘You went from fine dining
and now you’re going to be a
brewery?’”
He said, “Our sales tripled
that year, and that’s when
we were on a financial level
where we actually had a sav-
ings account. That changed
everything. Everything that
happened in town after that
was a benefit to us.”
The neighboring Overlook
Memorial Park and its water-
fall came next, later Stratton
Park, “and things got more
glorious,” Susan said.
“The public amenities
we’ve benefited from, and
maybe added to, became a
symbiosis,” Randy said.
Maccabee credited the
Orzecks with plenty of help-
ful guidance in the specific
interior details of renovating
a space that had to be gutted
following the 2019 fire.
In turn, Maccabee wants
to preserve the spirit of the
building that had been a
restaurant and brewery for
more than 30 years.
Maccabee wants to honor
the history of the building,
and the place the Orzecks
created, by keeping the exte-
rior unchanged, keeping the
Big Horse sign on the north
side of the building, and
adding signage that invokes
that of the restaurant.
“We are super-happy to
leave it as an iconic structure
in tribute to the history of the
builidng, and the footprint it
left on downtown,” Maccabee
said.
A “Closed for Remodeling”
sign hung for months after
the fire and, while the build-
ing was dark and absent of
activity as the Orzecks strove
to re-open, the remodeling
is now happening, starting
with repairs to the stairway,
and replacement of the up-
per-story deck facing north
and overlooking downtown
and the Columbia River.
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