Local restaurant Moon Time celebrates 30 years of business and friendship

Imagine walking into a neighborhood restaurant. The bar is filled with patrons, trying to grab a drink after work or catch up with friends. The tables consist of families who come at every chance they get. The food and drinks are both delicious and affordable.

This is the atmosphere that John Grollmus and Brad Fosseen set out to create 30 years ago, when they established Moon Time, a restaurant in Coeur d’Alene modeled after a traditional English public house.

“It feels crazy. It made me feel old the other day,” said Fosseen when asked how he felt about 30 years in business.

On Saturday, the pair celebrated the restaurant’s anniversary with a party and added specialized menu items at each of their other four locations (the Porch, the Elk, Two Seven and El Que), all of which are slightly younger than Moon Time.

In some cases, customers who were regulars from the beginning still frequent the restaurant.

“At the party … they were there with their kids, and their kids’ kids,” Grollmus said.

Both men grew up in Spokane and became friends at Lewis and Clark High School. They later went to Seattle and worked together painting houses, until eventually deciding to move back to the East Side to open a restaurant together, attempting to replicate the atmosphere of 74th Street Ale House, a restaurant in Seattle that Fosseen had worked at.

The idea for the name “Moon Time” originated from “Porch Song” by the band Widespread Panic.

“The message of the song is basically, like, having a good time every day, you know, and living in the moon time,” Grollmus said. “So the name seemed appropriate.”

In 1999, they had the opportunity to expand from Coeur d’Alene and took it, opening the Elk Public House in the Browne’s Addition Neighborhood, and then El Que, which opened in the adjoining building in 2001.

El Que serves Mexican street food, rather than the soups, salads and sandwiches on the menus of their other restaurants.

Just a few years later, in 2003, the Porch Public House opened, overlooking a golf course in Hayden Lake. It was named after the same Widespread Panic song that Moon Time was.

Finally, in 2008 their fifth restaurant, the Two-Seven Public House, opened. Named for its address, 2727 S. Mt. Vernon St. on 27th Avenue, it serves the South Hill area.

After all their success, Grollmus and Fosseen have not forgotten their roots. In fact, their menus pay homage to the Seattle restaurant that started it all, with the 74th St. Gumbo available at many of their locations.

Even now, the pair uses a hands-on approach to ownership. Fosseen occasionally still works in the kitchen at the various restaurants, and Grollmus often comes in to do office work.

“People often ask, ‘Why don’t you just do all that from home?’ Which I could, but it’s much better, I think, to show up at the restaurant, see what’s happening,” Grollmus said.

With how much work they do inside the restaurants, they’ve become close with staff and customers over the years.

“Neither of us have kids, so it’s kinda like a family” Fosseen said.

After 30 years of owning a restaurant together, and around 40 years of knowing each other, one thing is clear.

“Like I said,” Fosseen said, “I’m glad he’s still my friend.”