{"id":17706,"date":"2022-04-06T01:50:40","date_gmt":"2022-04-06T01:50:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=17706"},"modified":"2022-07-29T19:25:57","modified_gmt":"2022-07-29T19:25:57","slug":"good-bye-good-eats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2022\/04\/06\/good-bye-good-eats\/","title":{"rendered":"Good-Bye, Good eats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Popular Ketchum eatery Perry\u2019s closing to make way for housing<\/strong><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

By Eric Valentine<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Keith and Paula Perry, pictured here circa 1985, ask patrons to share their memories on social media. Image credit: Perry\u2019s Restaurant Facebook page<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s after 5 a.m. on a Tuesday morning and Keith Perry is in the fourth decade of prepping his and his wife\u2019s namesake restaurant to serve the patrons he knows and loves the hearty and thoughtful comfort foods they know and love. With less than two hours before the eatery opens for the day and less than two months before it closes for good, it\u2019s not so early that the extroverted restaurateur can\u2019t see some irony\u2014and blessings\u2014in all of this.<\/p>\n

The irony? In an industry that would benefit immensely from more housing in a resort community, it\u2019s a community housing development that would have displaced the restaurant had Keith and his wife Paula Perry not chosen the retirement option on life\u2019s menu instead. In January of this year, Sun Valley resident Broderick Smith and Ketchum resident Carson Palmer, who purchased Perry\u2019s commercial lot and two nearby vacant lots last year, announced plans to build a mixed-use commercial and residential development there. And that means the Perry\u2019s First Avenue\/Fourth Street building would be demolished.<\/p>\n

According to Keith Perry, he and his wife were given the option to relocate the restaurant elsewhere and receive some level of compensation that would go toward the costs of that relocation. Or, take the compensation and use it for their, now, retirement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a five-year plan a few years ago to keep the restaurant going until we hit our 70s, and the ideal thinking was we\u2019d sell the place to some young chef or couple who\u2019d keep it going strong,\u201d Keith Perry said.<\/p>\n

And then COVID hit \u2026<\/p>\n

Has anyone out there ever tried selling a restaurant during a lockdown-level pandemic? You could call it a buyer\u2019s market, but that\u2019s because there are no buyers.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot one call! Not even a \u2018we might be interested,\u2019\u201d Perry said.<\/p>\n

It should be noted that Perry\u2019s is an example of one of the eateries that weathered the pandemic storm well. Keith Perry said there were months that they were pulling in 40% above normal profits. So that raises a deeper and broader economics question, one whose answer is all about labor and where that labor can afford to live.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no way we could have made it through (the pandemic) without my employees,\u201d Perry said.<\/p>\n

Specifically, he\u2019s talking about the \u201cback of the house\u201d workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cJuan has been here since 1997 and Cesar since like 1990, and Henry and Elmer probably since 1999,\u201d Perry lists off their names. \u201cI don\u2019t have any (retirement or semi-retirement) plans right now. My priority is making sure my workers get lined up with really good jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s the other side of the ironic service-industry coin\u2014Perry said his phone is ringing off the hook with other restaurant managers calling to recruit his staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwenty, maybe 25, calls so far,\u201d Perry said. \u201cAnd I have to commend the other restaurants out there. They all have labor shortages and could have tried to lure my workers. That\u2019s another reason we decided to set a clear date when the restaurant is closing for good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perry, in a move that shows his degree of both business savvy and moral ethics, also is offering his employees a generous severance package should they remain with him until June 1, when the mom and pop closes shop for good.<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s Note: <\/i><\/b>An excerpt from a post by an employee about actor Bruce Willis. Some content was edited for space and clarity.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t say enough about how my time at Perry\u2019s changed my life. They took a chance with me and hired me four months sober \u2026 And here\u2019s my favorite memory: very fitting with the most recent news on our hero. There was a time when (Bruce) Willis came for lunch often and we all got to be very chatty with him and the family. My heart continued to skip a beat with each visit. I later found out he was friendly with me as he thought I was Mrs. Perry!<\/p>\n

Well, one day we were incredibly busy and the lunches were getting backed up big time \u2026 Bruce comes back to me and says \u2026 \u201cWhat\u2019s the hang-up today?\u201d I explained we were a little backed up and could use a hand! \u2026 He dove right in! I watched as he announced the names and delivered the food and the look on the patrons\u2019 faces said it all. So much fun! \u2026 And unforgettable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Side Note:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

FRET NOT, FOODIES<\/strong> … <\/span>Geordy Murphy of Cypress Hospitality Group<\/a><\/span> knows success in the hospitality industry. He talks about how things are looking up for restaurants sooner than later in this True 7 Life podcast<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Popular Ketchum eatery Perry\u2019s closing to make way for housing By Eric Valentine It\u2019s after 5 a.m. on a Tuesday morning and Keith Perry is in the fourth decade of prepping his and his wife\u2019s namesake restaurant to serve the patrons he knows and loves the hearty and thoughtful comfort foods they know and love. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,8,82,88,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17706","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-community","8":"category-food","9":"category-housing","10":"category-local","11":"category-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17706"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18418,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17706\/revisions\/18418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}