Co-op pizza restaurant closes

FAIRFIELD, Idaho – After six years of business, a community cooperative pizza restaurant has served up its last pie.

Nine couples had been volunteering their time to keep Jim Dandy’s Pizza Pub open since its original owners shut it down in 1998. They wanted to keep available a place where the kids could hang out and where families could gather in a community 30 miles from the next closest town.

“We all felt sad to see it close,” said Tiffanie Hanks, who with her husband, Mayor David Hanks, was an original member of the cooperative. “But none of us had the money to save it.”

“Thanks for the memories” was written on the chalkboard that greeted customers as they entered for the final time.

“I always felt it was a safe place to be,” said Kayme Backstrom, a freshman at Camas County High School who was in the pub Thursday.

The restaurant employed only a full-time cook and two part-time helpers, relying on members of the cooperative to pick up the slack. Each family in the cooperative knew how to open and close the restaurant, clean, cook and serve.

The decision to close came after two very slow months.