WE WERE SOME OF THE LUCKY oneswho got to celebrate one last birthday in the iconic old school VW Bus before the venerable West Bremerton breakfast spot closed its doors last month.
Memories, nostalgia and morning after philosophy are floating above our heads inside the Volkswagen that originally brought the minds behind Hi-Los to Washington state, then became the restaurant’s daily driver, and then, when she wouldn’t drive no more, became a private dining booth permanently parked outside of the tenured cafe. We are listening to a soundtrack of the bands that have posted stickers on the windows of the van over the years. We’re calling phone numbers that have been scribbled on the interior upholstery. We’re reading all the hand-written notes and quotes that have been tagged on the inside of this space over the past decade-plus.
———————————————
*BE THE REASON SOMEONE SMILES*
———————————————-
After 20 years of building and running the often-hailed “hidden gem” and “one of the best breakfast spots in the Pacific Northwest,” and more than 35 years total spent in the food service industry, Heidi and Lowell Yoximer—the Hi and the Lo of Hi-Lo’s—are retiring.
Cue the kazoos! And commence the mourning of the moon biscuits.
Regular service ended last month. They’ll be throwing a final Hi-Lo’s Mahalo party on Sept. 23 as a thank you to the community who, they say, made Hi-Lo’s what it was.
“We’re grateful beyond belief,” Lowell says. “It blew any expectations out of the water…”
“Bigger than anything we ever could’ve imagined,” he and Heidi say in unison.
“And It’s the people, the community,” Heidi adds. “Otherwise it would’ve just been us in here, staring at the walls. We had an idea and then the people are what made it real.”
———————————————-
*BE THE CHANGE YOU WISH TO SEE IN THE WORLD*
———————————————-
Heidi and Lowell had long dreamt ‘one day, we’ll open our own restaurant.’
They both grew up in Southern California. Lowell grew up in the desert, Heidi grew up on the beach. They met in 1992, and a few years later, they were headed north. They landed first in Nevada City, California where they were part of a joint venture to open a coffeeshop in the early days of the 90’s coffee boom. That coffeeshop didn’t work out. But the dream of some day owning their own restaurant remained. “Plus we had already told everybody we were headed north,” Lowell said. “Like, we can’t turn back now.”
So they kept heading north. They called on friends in Seattle and arrived in Washington in 1996, bouncing around from downtown to West Seattle before landing in Bremerton where they would buy a home.This town looked different when they got here in the year 2000.
Downtown development was still a ways off. They remember their first night out on the town, walking into a near empty bar room at the now-razed Crow’s Nest Tavern. They remember fondly the now-defunct Westside Burrito Connection downtown and Pete’s Jersey Subs in Manette.
“When we first got here, it was like, ‘Whoa! This is like fresh clay,” Lowell said.
They remember Pete’s and the Burrito Connection as being influential in the creation of Hi-Lo’s. The owners of those local restaurants at that time were the same age as she and Lowell, in their mid-20’s to early 30’s. That added to the feeling of ‘we can do this.’ Early on, the Hi-Lo’s duo had simple stickers made featuring the phrase ‘Beautify Bremerton’ which they distributed freely through both Pete’s and the Burrito Connection.
“We’ve always said, everyone should just pick a corner,” Heidi says. “If everybody just picks a corner and spruces it up, it could be cool.”
Within three years of living in Bremerton, Heidi and Lowell had found their corner and purchased the West Bremerton building that would become their cafe. “People thought we were nuts,” Lowell said. Over the next three years, they worked on renovating the space, building the kitchen from the floor up, all while working day jobs. Word of mouth was already starting to spread before the opening via the Beautify Bremerton stickers and Hi-Lo’s t-shirts that were already making their way into the community.
At first, the duo had thought they could run the cafe with just the two of them—Lowell in the kitchen and Heidi as the host. But in the days leading up to the opening in 2006, they were approached by a friend, Hi-Lo’s first employee Katilady, asking if they might need a helping hand. “Literally the night before the opening, she came in and we were like, ‘OK, here’s what we do, see you in the morning,” Lowell said. “…And wham!’”
They were busier than they could have imagined from the moment they opened the doors. Within the first two weeks, Lowell says, they went from two to nine employees. Sometimes they would have to pull friends from the counter seats to come help in the kitchen. Early on, they even had an 80-year-old dishwasher—Lowell’s great uncle and mentor, Uncle Jr.—who was also among Hi-Lo’s first employees. “We were just so busy, we didn’t know what to do,” Heidi remembers. “And he was in town so…”
“And then, he would be like, ‘That’s it, I’m done, time for pie!’” Lowell laughs.
————————————————-
*BE WHO YOU ARE AND SAY HOW YOU FEEL BECAUSE THE ONES WHO MATTER DON’T MIND AND THE ONES WHO MIND DON’T MATTER*
————————————————
Two weeks into Hi-Lo’s opening, Lowell broke his wrist. He was building an extra storage shed out back of the restaurant when the ladder broke. Heidi’s got an old binder of keepsakes from those days, including a copy of the special ‘one-armed-chef’ menu they ran. She’s also got old school photo albums of 3×5-printed film photos from the work they did during renovation. Before the turquoise sky-colored ceiling, the orange-and-yellow sunshine walls and what was once a glitter ocean floor, the walls were drab and white. The building used to house a computer repair shop. There’s a photo of Lowell when he had drawn an exact replica on the walls of where every piece of kitchen equipment would go. “He sees in blueprints, I see in technicolor,” Heidi said. She flips the page to photos of a kid hanging out during the renovation, playing in the sand at the park down the street. That kid, Dominik Pelzer, is 21 now. He worked at Hi-Lo’s starting when he turned 16. “I know it’s gonna hit me later after we get through all the craziness,” Heidi said. “But it’s the kids that really show you that time is marching on.”
“It hit me the other day when you retired the meatloaf sandwich,” said another longtime employee Ritchie Smith, motioning to Lowell. “It brought a tear to my eye.”
After stepping in to help on short notice when Lowell broke his wrist two weeks into Hi-Lo’s existence, Ritchie stayed on and worked for the duration of the cafe’s existence. He’s here today with another been-there-since-before-day-one-to-the-final-day crew member Randy Parsons. “And you wanna know something,” Heidi leans into the table in a hushed tone, like she’s got a secret. “Neither one of them have called out sick in 17-point-five years.”
Randy and Ritchie both agree that working at Hi-Lo’s has been the most enjoyable job they’d ever had. Randy likens the job to spending time with your friends while seeing old friends and new friends who would happen into the cafe on any given day. Ritchie takes it one step further and terms it family. “That was the point of the whole thing,” Heidi said. “Friends, family and community… like a home away from home.”
In addition to Hi-Lo’s retro, weird, random and wacky decor, goofy shenanigans and quirkily-named homestyle food, that sentiment of ‘home’ has left an indelible mark on its community. Heidi said she was talking to a former customer recently who was remembering their childhood visits and noting those Hi-Lo’s experiences as ‘core memories.’ “And I was like, whoa! Core memory, that’s like a lasting thing right?” Heidi was flabbergasted. “So… that’s good news!”
“Something that I’ve noticed and have been keeping track of,” Lowell said. “Every single day that Hi-Lo’s has been open, we’ve had at least one new person walk through the door. Like every day. For the whole time, and I always thought that was just mind-blowing.”
It seemed somewhat abrupt when the news of Hi-Lo’s retirement came through the socials at the end of July, announcing they would be closing at the end of August. But the decision had been much longer in the making. Heidi said they had originally planned to run through the end of the year before they realized—as a perennial job provider for young adults—they’d be losing a portion of their staff in September. With just one full-time staff member remaining, and a schedule that had been scaled down post-covid to Saturday and Sunday mornings, it didn’t make sense to recruit new staff for just four months.
As for the motivation behind retirement, it seems both Heidi and Lowell are simply ready for a new chapter.
———————————————–
*LIVE THE LIFE YOU LOVE AND LOVE THE LIFE YOU LIVE*
———————————————–
In the past 37 years, Lowell said he’s only had two jobs outside of the kitchen, both at used bookstores. Heidi counts more than 30 years of both of them working every weekend, outside of their once-a-year vacations. Both are beyond stoked to have weekends off. Lowell excitedly looks at the shift as a “blank canvas.”
They are planning to put the Hi-Lo’s building up for sale, but not as “Hi-Lo’s.”
After all, you can’t really have Hi-Lo’s without the Hi and the Lo.
They’re in the process of “de-hi-lo’s-ing” the building, Lowell termed it. The space will be returned to its blank canvas with the hope that someone new will swerve off to the side of the road when they see the for sale sign—like Heidi and Lowell did 20-some years ago—and start building their own dream.
And, as for Hi-Lo’s dream, the hope is that the brand will live on in different incarnations. There are already great and goofy ideas afoot. Heidi is looking into a merchant style business featuring their patented tie-dyes, under the name “Hi-Lo’s Groovy Goods.” Lowell is thinking about reaching out to Norwich, Connecticut—home of the original American Thermos Bottle Company—to see if there might be interest in creating a real, official Thermos Museum with his 4,000-piece collection.
There’s even been talk of a Hi-Lo’s 15th Street Cafe cookbook! // BILLMAN
HI-LO’S MAHALO PARTY An aloha themed thank you to the community will be September 23 at Hi-Lo’s 15th Street Cafe, follow Hi-Lo’s on Facebook for more details.
