Students Serve Up Style

The Market, with 450 seats perhaps North Idaho’s biggest eatery, opened last week in Coeur d’Alene.

Sneak up on you? Not on the 3,700 students at North Idaho College, where the Edminster Student Union Building has been under construction since the summer of 1997.

The $4.5 million project was financed entirely by students, not taxpayers, to serve their growing population and the public. Many students at the two-year school who paid extra fees for the building didn’t get the chance to use it since the facility was closed for more than three semesters.

But they will get the chance now. So will the public, because community events often are scheduled in the facility’s meeting rooms.

The new SUB looks almost nothing like its predecessor. A glass, cathedral-ceiling entrance opens into the 65,000-square-foot building, larger than the old facility’s 42,000 square feet.

Visitors can familiarize themselves with the new building by first stopping at The Educated Cup, a coffee bar with high stools around circular tables. The original Educated Cup remains on the Boswell Hall veranda.

Filler Up, the first food bar, offers several options. Pacific Rim is an Asian outlet with many choices of rice and noodle bowls. The Burrito Bar offers fajitas, burritos and chicken wraps, and the Breakfast Bar’s full menu features omelets and Belgian waffles.

The wall over the eatery features the front end of a ‘57 Buick, renovated and installed by NIC’s auto body class and donated by Classic Auto Parts of Coeur d’Alene.

Next in the grand hall is CDA Sandwich Builders, which offers a variety of hot and cold sandwiches with multiple options of breads, meats, cheese, spreads and garnishes.

Probably the most popular shop will be the Cooked Goose Grill & Pizzeria with burgers, fries, toppings, several chicken dishes and pizza. Other options are the Granite Bay Bakery, a 12-foot salad bar with three soups and the Grab and Go area with ready-made foods and beverages.

Students also contributed to the decor. Welding students fabricated the large “The Market” entrance sign, and the millwright students produced a 3-foot steel coffee cup.

The Market is open for breakfast from 6:30-10:30 a.m. Other food service runs until 8:30 p.m. weekdays, said food service manager Bill Rutherford. Seating also will be provided on an outdoor patio.

The 15,000-square-foot dining area overlooks the Fort Sherman grounds.

On the building’s east side is the new NIC bookstore, now called the Mica Peak Exchange, in spaces that formerly housed the original SUB dining area and the Kootenai Room. The greatly expanded store offers books and a browsing area, school and art supplies, computers and software and NIC logo clothing and gift items and services for copying, mailing and special orders.

An open, grand stairway (and elevators) leads to the second-floor student body offices and several of the building’s eight meeting rooms, which range from 15 to 317 seats. For information on rooms and catering, contact Marsha Nead, 769-3361.

The SUB’s lower level, now open to the outside, includes a large recreation room, television room, recreational equipment rental area, a video game area and meeting rooms.

The grand opening - noon to 8 p.m. Wednesday, March 24 - will feature a hot-wing eating contest, tours every half hour, several live music groups and a 5:30 p.m. dedication ceremony.

Tidbits:

North Idaho’s latest Costco rumor is that the mega-store will be located near the southwest corner of Highway 95 and Prairie Avenue. If so, the primary sources aren’t talking.

During the past year Costco also was rumored to be interested in a number of other Coeur d’Alene locations. It’s likely nothing will happen unless Idaho drops its tax on food, which Washington doesn’t have.

Last week, when I compared Huntington Beach, Calif., with Sandpoint, I was referring to Huntington’s four-block downtown strip, used almost solely by tourists and often ignored by local residents. Sound familiar? As some readers noted, all of Huntington Beach has 190,751 people, which is larger than any Idaho city.