Former restaurateurs open new operation

Nearly three years after selling Torgy’s Casino and Grill to retire, the former owners are back in business.

“Basically, I wanted to get back to work,” Diana Torgison said.

When Torgison got back to work, she made it a family affair. Torgison, her husband, Dan, and Tori Myers, her daughter, purchased the former Treasure Mountain Casino and reopened the restaurant, bar and casino as the Switchback Bar and Grill on June 13.

The family owned Torgy’s from 1996 to 2013, transforming the cafe-and-gas station into a fully-functional restaurant.

Torgison said the first week was busy, so busy that most employees worked six or seven days. Monday was finally the day things seemed to return to normal pace, she said.

“I think the community is very happy we’re here,” Torgison said.

Mike and Dori Munro, who owned the Treasure Mountain Casino at that location 23 years ago, are also pleased with the change of leadership at the U.S. 2 Highway restaurant.

“We’re so thrilled that local folks are the ones who’ve taken over here,” Dori said. “It’s still a place where people can continue to feel welcome at this establishment with familiar faces.”

“They’ve done some beautiful remodeling,” Mike added. “Businesses in this community support each other. They can keep doing that.”

Mike and Dori said they gave up the Treasure Mountain Casino for the same reason Torgison left Torgy’s: to retire into the next chapter of their lives. They’ll miss running the highway-side casino, but said the time was right for retirement.

“It’s been a wonderful business for our 23 years here,” Dori said. “The community support here as been awesome.”

Torgison and company closed the building down for about three weeks while crews completed renovations she said. There wasn’t a massive overhaul of the building, but the kitchen was almost entirely restocked with new equipment, a few walls got a new paint job and serving stations have been rearranged for a more streamlined process.

Overall, the Switchback Bar and Grill should have the same atmosphere customers had with the Treasure Mountain Casino, Torgison said.

“It’s a nice building, it just needed some updates,” she said.

Still restaurateurs, Torgison and Myers said the differences between the two ventures have been striking.

First off, the Switchback is bigger, they said, with more than double the seating. Second, the location places the owners between two hotels. The restaurant still serves a regular pool of locals, but the nearby hotels bring more tourists than they’re used to seeing, Torgison said.

“It’s a really good location,” Myers said.

The menu is also bigger, they said. In their second run at operating a restaurant, Torgison wanted to focus on quality food. The dressings and pasta sauces are house-made, and the salad is cut from a head of lettuce, not taken from a bag, she said.

The new menu is focused on iconic places in the Kootenai Valley area. Several menu items have been named after peaks or lakes in the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness just south of town.

After the purchase, Torgison and Myers kept almost all the former Treasure Mountain Casino employees (two chose to pursue work elsewhere) and added a few more. Myers said having a staff familiar with the building was instrumental in the restaurant’s first-week success.

Now in their third week, the owners of the Switchback said they’re hoping to maintain the restaurant’s reputation as a local staple.

“We just want to give people a good meal and hope they keep coming back,” Torgison said.

The Switchback is open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. most days; on Friday and Saturday the kitchen stays open until 11 p.m. The casino and bar general closes around midnight, but Torgison said they’ll keep it open if people want to lounge.

Reporter Seaborn Larson may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at slarson@dailyinterlake.com.