Le Bistro bids Adieu to its home in the harbor

Susan Schell

of the Gateway

Gig Harbor will lose one of its longest-standing eateries when Le Bistro Coffee House on Harborview Drive closes its doors on Sunday.

The little café in the stand-alone corner house had a small-town ambience that’s hard to replace: Lace-curtained windows adorned with flower boxes, hardwood floors, a front porch, a dining counter and an alcove with intimate bistro-style seating.

The property Le Bistro sits on has been sold to an “investor/developer,” owner Debi McAlpine said, but she does not know the specifics at this point of what they intend to do with it.

The deal is expected to close in mid-August.

McAlpine said closing Le Bistro is “bittersweet,” because running the restaurant has been a big part of her life. Eighteen years ago, she began working at the restaurant under the tutelage of then-owner Jean-Pierre Maurice, a Montreal native McAlpine met through a mutual friend.

The Canadian, whom McAlpine called a “very colorful character,” took in McAlpine with virtually no experience, except an innate ability to taste the ingredients in food and turn around and whip up her own, better version of the same dish.

McApline said the unique gift usually belongs to people who truly love to cook.

“I remember going into a restaurant and tasting the black bean soup,” she said. “And I thought, ‘Oh, I can do better than that.’ ”

Maurice, a businessman at heart, taught McAlpine the culinary industry from the ground up.

“I had never been in a restaurant kitchen,” McAlpine said. “But here I was, cooking, menu planning and ordering supplies.”

A year later, Maurice’s entrepreneurial spirit led him to the building next door, where he set about starting a new restaurant, the Captain’s Terrace.

With that, he handed Le Bistro to McAlpine and let her lease the building until she could pay it off.

“I have had an extraordinary amount of good fortune,” McAlpine said. “He (Maurice) really and truly afforded me an opportunity I might never have had. Because of him, I ended up having a fabulous career.”

A local icon

Over the years, McAlpine and her family set about making Le Bistro a local icon in every sense of the word. The restaurateur developed new recipes and credits the “Buena Vista,” a little café on the waterfront in San Francisco, as the inspiration for her locally famous Hollandaise sauce.

“When I tasted it, I thought, ‘I can make this — even better,’ ” she said.

The trick was to develop a sauce that would “hold.”

“Hollandaise sauce doesn’t keep,” McAlpine said. “When we decided to do eggs benedict, we did not want to use raw eggs, because they’re not stable. So we set about engineering a sauce that would be stable so it could be chilled, reheated and even frozen.”

McAlpine’s daughter, Danielle Saice, became a master of the creation.

“She’s the only one who’s ever made it here,” McAlpine said. “I doubt if I could even make it now. She does it without even thinking.”

The restaurant grew with the family, and the family grew with the restaurant. When Saice gave birth to her daughter, Kirah, the baby occupied a space at the end of the counter in her bassinet while her mom cooked.

“I’ve lived my whole life here,” said Kirah, now 9.

Daughter Stephani Williams also worked the counter, joining the crew when she was about 6.

McAlpine’s husband, Ken, added his touch to the flowers in the window box planters and occasionally whipped up quiche and sausage gravy. He decorated the building with Christmas lights and ornaments each holiday season.

“The place looked like a gingerbread house,” McAlpine said. “Each year, he added more and more. You wouldn’t believe how much he put into it.”

The bistro’s inside décor also garnished personal touches over the years, as customers and friends donated items to display.

“A man came in once and, after seeing the musical instruments, he ran out to his car and brought in a sterling silver clarinet,” McAlpine said. “He said, ‘You need to have this in here.’ ”

McAlpine also said that, because she likes frogs, people brought her lots of frog memorabilia.

“We have a lot of customers that have become good friends,” Williams said.

“We’ve lived very publicly,” McAlpine said. “The support and love I’ve had from the community has been unbelievable.”

Closing the restaurant has been a collective family decision. Saice said she wants to go back to school and spend more time with her immediate family; Williams is completing an associate degree at Tacoma Community College and plans to attend a four-year university.

McAlpine said she will “try out” retirement, but she’s not sure how long she’ll be able to sit still. She’s toying with the idea of marketing her signature Hollandaise sauce.

“After working nearly every day for the past 18 years, it should be interesting,” she said. “But I still have a lot of work to do.”

That work includes getting rid of everything in the store, including the cookware, furniture, fixtures and decorations. She plans to have a closing sale July 24-27. Gig Harbor residents will be able to take home a little piece of Le Bistro for themselves.

Reach reporter Susan Schell at 253-853-9240 or by e-mail at susan.schell@gateline.com.