Moses Lake family opens downtown cafe

Bridges remodel computer business, open restaurant

MOSES LAKE - The newest hot spot in downtown Moses Lake is a real family undertaking.

Carol's Firefly Cafe opened Nov. 16 at 202 W. Third Ave.

Owner Carol Bridges said she and husband Clint grew up in Othello, and moved to Moses Lake 28 years ago.

They'd known each other since second grade, but hadn't dated until they got together after college.

"We got married and I had a job over here, I was driving back and forth, and he got a job over here, so we moved," Bridges said. "We felt we were moving into the big city."

The Bridges own City Center Computer, formerly known as the Computer Place. They recently changed the name of the business to go along with the changes to downtown Moses Lake and the opening of the cafe.

"We had this big building and we felt we really didn't need all this room for computers," Bridges said. "The computer business is changing and more people get computers off the Internet, other places … so we thought we would open it up to something, we could have something out here to sell. We were trying to think what it would be and we thought, 'Well, people always eat.'"

Bridges also wanted her children to have the opportunity to work, learn to serve people and develop a good work ethic.

The Bridges have four children. Brian, 21, and Bethany, 16, are working at the cafe as a sandwich artist and a waitress, respectively.

"We talked about coffee and we talked about ice cream, different ideas," Bridges said. "We felt since the city was trying to encourage downtown development, that this would be a good thing to do. I hope we're right."

Bridges anticipates the ice cream and iced drinks will be popular in the summer, but said she is selling a lot of ice cream already.

"I didn't know if ice cream would sell in November when it's snowing, but it does," she said.

The cafe offers coffee, ice cream, baked potatoes, croissant sandwiches, regular sandwiches and hamburgers and hot dogs.

Bridges said she wasn't really looking to open this kind of an establishment.

"I don't have restaurant experience and I hadn't really thought about it, but I knew how to cook," she said. "I like to have a big house (full) of people to serve the meals, so I thought, 'Well, this is similar to that.' It's been a big learning curve. I think we're getting better every day, because we're all new at this. People have been very kind, very patient and I've felt the reception has been very good."

Bridges said the business is open to helpful suggestion.

"Some of our improvements have been customers who have said, 'You know, you ought to try this,'" she said. "I'm encouraged by it."

After some people suggested the croissants were small, the restaurant did some research and found larger ones. Some family members also made suggestions about making it clear whether customers pay at their tables or at the cash register.

The cafe employs three waitresses, Brian as the sandwich artist and Bridges herself. Husband Clint will help out as needed, she added.

"We want to expand our ice cream, the iced beverages, candy, the kind of things kids like in the summertime," she said. "We want to cater to businesses here, we want to be able to have a call-in or a fax and delivery."

That's to make it easier for the neighboring business community to call in their orders and pick up their food or have it delivered.

"That was another thing, one of the reasons Clint and I talked about a restaurant here, was we never got to go to lunch," Bridges said. "That's one thing I noticed, is there's not a lot of places downtown, so we thought at least we'd have some place to eat."

The business is open from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Tuesday through Thursday, and until 10 p.m. on Friday nights. Saturday the business is open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

For more information, call 509-766-2927.