Nearly a year after reopening The Sawtooth Club after a fire nearly destroyed it, the Ketchum restaurateur added a third restaurant to a portfolio that already included “The Tooth” and The Roosevelt Grille.
Next fall he hopes to open a fourth restaurant a mile west of the Perrine Bridge on the south side of the Snake River Canyon rim in Twin Falls.
Never mind that restaurants across the nation are just getting by due to the poor economy.
“Chalk it up to stupidity or stubbornness,” Nickel joked. “I saw the location and I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’
“I was struck by the fact that this is one of the geographical highlights of the West. You can see the Pioneers and the Soldier Mountains to the north. And in the summer you’ll be able to sit on the terrace and drop an ice cube into the canyon. This could be one of the iconic restaurants in the state because of where it’s situated and the quality of the construction project.”
Nickel never dreamed that he would run restaurants from Galena to the Snake River when he moved to Ketchum in 1980. An employee of the Forest Service for several years, he opted to join two friends—Larry Stone and Duffy Witmer—in opening the Creekside, a popular restaurant on the Warm Springs side of Baldy.
Witmer went on to open the Pioneer Saloon while Stone opened the Ketchum Grill.
And Nickel never picked up an axe again, instead choosing to run a number of restaurants, including the one at Galena Lodge and the Out of Bounds Lounge at Warm Springs.
In mid-June he opened The BrickHouse Bar and Grill in the 1910 “Bank Building,” on Bellevue’s Main Street. It has attracted a lot of Magic Valley residents going to and from Sun Valley, Nickel said, as well as residents of Carey, Picabo, Gannett and Shoshone.
“There were all kinds of reasons not to do it, primarily the economy,” said co-owner Lindy Stark. “But we felt it filled a niche in the South Valley for reasonably priced casual fine dining.”